What It Means to Be A Monster
by shellyxstarscream
Summary: Jill has been Chris's partner ever since the very beginning, but when the pair encounter an old enemy, their lives get changed forever.
1. Prologue

This is only my second - the twincest I really just posted as a "okay-I'm-here-now-what" tester. This is still RE, but I'm gonna take this one way further.  
>It's going to be an entirely JillChris/Wesker/whoever else comes along type deal. Basically I'm going from the Spencer Incident we see in Lost in Nightmares, and going all the way to RE5 when we meet Jill.

I appreciate any and all reviews, whether it be constructive criticism, compliments or just general feedback.

**Disclaimer; **All characters and most plot is not mine, copyright entirely of _Capcom; Resident Evil series._

**Warning; **None.

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><p>"<em>And the tears come streaming down your face<em>_  
><em>_When you lose something you can't replace__  
><em>_When you love someone, but it goes to waste__  
><em>_Could it be worse?"_

_**- - **__**Fix You, **__**Coldplay**_

The grass was damp under Chris Redfield's feet as he walked across the cemetery. It was drizzling lightly, and the drops of water were cool against his skin. It had been exactly one year to the day since the last time he walked this grass. Funny, but on that day one year it ago, it had been raining. It always seemed to be raining. Even now, one year later. One year exactly since he had stood in a tight new suit, with his hands behind his back. It wasn't that he had purposely ignored coming here, he was just afraid. Afraid that coming here was accepting that she was dead, and he couldn't do that. There wasn't a single part of him that would ever accept that.

He passed row after row of headstones, all varying heights and shades of grey stone. The path was made of lose pebbles and dirt, which had puddles every few steps due to the drizzle. Despite only having been here once, an entire year ago, he knew exactly where he was going. He remembered every step; every thought he'd had that day. His mind was blank now, not allowing any thoughts to invade the forced inner silence he had created for himself. He continued walking until he got to the small divide in the path, causing him to hesitate and stop walking. He paused, sighing to himself, reaching up and wiping the rain drops from his forehead with the back of his hand. It was a cool, damp day. The sky was a murky grey, and completely clouded over. A light wind rustled the leaves in the trees, and brushed through Chris's hair. He squinted his green eyes as the wind blew the rainy drizzle into them, and he turned his head, looking down the path to the left. Taking a breath, he walked forwards, walking down the path a short ways, then veering off of it, walking through the grass, taking care not to tread on any graves. He was dressed in civilian clothing; dark grey jeans, and a white t-shirt that clung to his chest and arms. Though it was breezy, he was without a jacket. He could barely even feel the cold.

He looked down at some of the other headstones as he walked, reading the names and dates on them. Most were well kept, with flowers and ribbons. One headstone had a wine glass in front of it, another, a bouquet of roses, long since dead. For some inexplicable reason, seeing these tokens of love made a wave of sadness overcome Chris. He looked away and drew a shaky breath. He almost regretted not making the trip to the floral shop; as though without fresh flowers in his hand, or a token of love, he wasn't welcome here. He shook the thoughts from his mind as the rows of headstones ended. The reason he had come was just ahead of him.

The stone was in the middle of a small clearing. The close together rows had opened into a small, circular clearing. A small cherry tree, with bright pink leaves grew off to the side. The stone was almost beside the tree, and was clear of any weeds, the grass well kept. He remembered when he had seen this place exactly a year ago. He remembered thinking how beautiful it was, that she would have loved it. He remembered all of the people, dressed in black, turning to look at him, looks of deepest sympathy and sorrow upon their faces. He paused at the edge of the clearing. He stared, hard, at the single gravestone, clenching his teeth together. Chris remembered the day, exactly one year ago, when he and his sister, Claire, had stood here, along with nearly a hundred others, all dressed in black, holding back tears. It still didn't feel real to him. None of it did.

Slowly, drawing a quivering breath, Chris took a few steps forward, thankful it was just himself. Walking through the parted aisle of people had been too much to bear. His shoes sunk into the damp grass, a sweet scent greeting him from the tree. A breeze went by, rustling his hair, as he came to a stop, just in front of the headstone. He crouched down, and kneeled in the grass tenderly, caring to stay off to one side. His brows furrowed together, and he reached forward tracing his fingers over the engraved letters.

_In Loving Memory_

_Jillian Valentine_

_1974 - 2006_

Chris' chin quivered, and he tightened his jaw, refusing to give in to the emptiness he felt, refusing to believe. They had never found her body. A three month search and been put in place after the incident at the Spencer Estate, and even after they failed to find a single trace of her, Chris had refused to stop looking. He would never stop looking; not until he had gotten an answer. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the dog-tag he had kept for so long. Looking down at it, he saw his own face reflected in the silver surface. _B.S.A.A. _was engraved on the front. He turned the small necklace over in his hand, touching his thumb over _Valentine _which was engraved on the back. He heard her laughter vaguely in his mind, travelling back to that night.

'_Here, can you keep this in your pocket? It's not like I need it, of course you know who I am.'_

He remembered her handing it to him. This was before they had even arrived at the mansion. Of course she had thought everything would be alright, so had he. How could they have known...they couldn't have. Chris closed his eyes and saw a flash. He remembered pain; he remembered being lifted off the ground, knowing what was coming. He remembered struggling and hearing her cry out, "No!". He remembered being dropped; the sound of glass shattering, of wind and rain. Everything after that was a blur; his frantic yelling, running back to the door, leaving the estate, struggling against the wind and rain, calling her name, praying that somehow, someway she had survived. How the rescue team and begun with such urgency, and how, as the months had gone on, that urgency had ebbed into nothing. He opened his eyes, looking from the dog-tag to the headstone. Gently and carefully, he reached out and pushed the dirt aside at the stone's base, placing the tag down. With a forced strength, he looked up at the stone again. Everyone had given up on her. How easy it was for them all to just accept that she was gone. Chris didn't. Chris wouldn't. Not on Jill, he would never give up on Jill. She was his partner, and his closest friend. She was everything to him, and he knew he would never stop until the day he died. He would never stop looking for her, not ever.

"You aren't dead, Jill. I know you aren't." Chris said softly, touching his fingers to the engraving once again. His heart skipped a painful beat, and it felt as though his lungs were constricting. "I would feel it if you were really gone. And I can feel that you aren't dead." He felt warm tears form in his eyes, and clenched his teeth together to hold them back. Crying meant she was gone for good, and that was not the case. He closed his eyes, forcing the tears back.

"You're just lost. And I swear, I will find you. I'll bring you back to me, Jill. I promise."

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><p>Wooooo~<br>little prologue to get things started.  
>This obviously jumps ahead a bit...and it made me sad to write Chris so upset u_u<p> 


	2. A Meeting of Minds

Yay! Wow, I can't believe this story has readers and favourites, I honestly didn't expect anyone to like it. Sure makes me feel good though :) Sorry this took a bit, I finished up a summer course and went on a mini vacation. Hopefully Chapter 2 comes out a lot faster, but anyways...here's Chapter 1!

I appreciate any and all reviews, whether it be constructive criticism, compliments or just general feedback.

**Disclaimer; **All characters and most plot is not mine, copyright entirely of _Capcom; Resident Evil series._

**Warning; **None.

* * *

><p>The huge mansion loomed over the two figures as Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine, old partners ever since their days with S.T.A.R.S., approached the main doors, guns drawn and senses on high alert. They had arrived in Europe one week prior, bags packed with weapons, ammo, health supplies and defensive tools, bracing themselves for the worst. They had been specially assigned this mission, by the order of the BSAA, European division to question and apprehend Oswell E. Spencer, one of the founders and creators of the infamous Umbrella Corporation. Ultimately, they had sensed this as the perfect opportunity to pursue a small mission of their own. Although it wasn't objective one with the BSAA, Chris and Jill knew that where Spencer was, Wesker was sure to be close behind. Chris especially suspected that Spencer would be able to give them some information that would lead him to Wesker, the one man he would never stop hunting. The duo walked side by side, fairly relaxed, but guns still at the ready. If there was anything they had learned about dealing with anyone associated with Umbrella, it was to never completely let your guard down. Chris, tall and brawny, was dressed in his BSAA gear, his vest equipped with his handgun ammo, a first aid spray and his knife covered his grayish shirt with its sleeves pushed above his elbows and BSAA patches on his biceps. He had his ear piece in to communicate with HQ, but his walkie-talkie still rested on his belt, just in case he got separated from Jill. No matter how Chris dressed his combat gear, there were things that stuck in his head. Never put the knife somewhere you can sit on it, zippers take too long but snaps open too easily, always go with Velcro, just pack what you need. All things he had been taught many years ago, by someone who Chris wanted so desperately to forget, but that same someone was the reason he and Jill were here.<p>

Jill followed close to him, but not too close. She was cautious and always ready to step to the defense of her partner. She was dressed in her own combat gear, sticking with the blue she had always been comfortable in. Equipped with the sprays and bullets Chris had, she had her earpiece and walkie-talkie at the ready, a blue cap pulled over her brown hair, tied back with her few stray bang pieces pushed to the side. Her boots made almost no noise as they moved closer, only the occasional splash as they moved through puddles and dips in the road. Despite the fact that they were about to face god knows what in the one place Chris had always dreaded going to, he couldn't help but steal a glance at Jill. He watched as she approached, probably thinking about everything that lay ahead of them, and allowed a small smile to pass over his features. No matter how much he tried to focus on their work, he could never stop himself from taking in just how beautiful Jill Valentine really was. A strange creaking from the mansion brought him back to the present and he turned his attentions back to the task at hand.

As they took cautious, but efficient steps towards the mansion looming overhead, a flash of lightening lit up the entire area, briefly giving Chris and Jill a clear flash of their surroundings. It looked even creepier in that flash of light than it ever had in the darkness. Jill froze in mid step, despite the chill in the air and the instinct to keep moving. Her grey eyes took in the building and she felt something inside of her – a dropping in the pit of her stomach.

"Everything's going to change." she said, her voice barely audible in the wind.

"What?" Chris paused and turned to face her, squinting in the dark to make out her face. He was unnerved by his partner's behaviour, usually so calm and collected, Jill was showing a sign of...panic? Her face was definitely not calm. If he didn't know any better, Chris would almost have said she was afraid. A wave of panic went through him at this thought.

"Jill, what is it?" He took a few steps towards Jill, since in the moment she had paused he had gotten several steps ahead of her. Her gun was held partially out in front of her, and the dim lights of the house illuminated her pale face. Jill Valentine was a woman who had been through her fair share of trauma and horror, and Chris knew she was not one to be easily intimidated. From what he'd heard from her about Raccoon City, well, it was hard for him to imagine her letting anything getting to her.

Jill clenched her jaw, and swallowed hard. _What's wrong with you, you're just questioning Spencer, that's it._ She shook herself, before forcing a small smile on her face. "Nothing, it's nothing. I just...expected more." She said, nodding slightly. A shiver went through her again and she had to force the worry away. "Come on."

Another bright flash of lightening illuminated the pair's dark surroundings. The mansion hung over them like a dark castle from a black and white movie. It was really something out of a nightmare, or maybe even was a nightmare itself. If one thing was for sure, it was that this was not going to be easy and it was not going to be fun. Chris and Jill were almost to the door now. Walking up the large entry way, the bushes and plants and grown over the gardens and blew in the wind, the dead trees creaking eerily. Colonnades framed the door, with two on both sides and two more above it. The mansion, for all intents and purposes, appeared abandoned, but they knew better. Chris frowned as his eyes moved over the dozens of smashed and filthy windows, terrified that he would see a face in one of them. He tightened his grip on his gun and kept moving forwards. As they got closer still, they raised their guns, holding them pointed in front of them, ready to shoot at anything that moved. They had been expecting to encounter someone...anyone by now. The silence and emptiness did not comfort them, quite the contrary; it had put both of them on edge.

"Where are all the guards?" Jill asked nervously. Her eyes were skipping back and forth over the windows, her gun aimed firmly at the door. If there was anything she had learned through the years, it was that a calm silence when you least expect it is never a good thing.

"I don't know, but I have a bad feeling about this." Chris said glumly.

"Let's just keep moving."

The pair climbed the small set of steps leading up to the grand double doors, as quietly as they could. Once they had their backs against the door, it became clear that nothing was going to immediately attack them. Chris nodded to Jill, and she nodded back, holstering her gun and pulling out a lock pick for the door. As skilled as ever, Jill had never lost her touch. Chris stood by on watch, ready to protect her from anything that might attack her as she worked. After another few moments went by, it became clear that no alarm system was being tripped and that whoever was supposed to be guarding the door was either preoccupied, or maybe even dead. Chris dropped his gun to his side and raised his hand to his headpiece.

"Chris to HQ, come in. We're at the target's location." He needed to check in, let them know they were safe and that they'd arrived in one piece.

"Copy that Chris, move in and procure the target." The voice was crackly with static; reception was definitely not top here.

"Roger that."

"What can you tell us about the area?" Jill asked from her kneeling position. She had been listening in while she worked, and wanted to know more about why it was so quiet. Maybe HQ could tell them something that would ease the tension, or at least help to dispel the fear.

"A satellite scan isn't showing anything out of the ordinary, but regardless, you should expect the unexpected."

If there was anything the two of them had learned, it was just that. Jill nodded silently in agreement. _I hear that. _She thought.

"Understood." The lock was beginning to feel looser beneath her hands. With a click, it released, and the brief moment of calm was gone. Chris turned off the communication with HQ and held his gun out, once again aiming it at the door. Pocketing the lock pick and taking out her gun once again, Jill moved to the side to let Chris lead the way. Chris put his hand on the door and looked uneasily at Jill.

She looked right back, and held her breath, before nodding. "We're in."

"Let's move." Chris said, without another pause. Despite the confidence in his voice, his nerves were still fighting him. He turned the door handle, and shouldered in the door, charging into the entryway, his gun at the ready.

Jill raised her gun in front of her and took her move, taking a few cautious steps towards the open door. Not hearing any signs of distress from Chris, she let out a small breath of relief. She turned her back to the doorway, and looked around back the way they had come. She paused, staring out at the dark driveway, the wind moving the trees and plants and nothing, not even night life, disturbing the silence. She felt a nervous tugging at the corner of her mind. Something inside of her knew...knew that after tonight, nothing would be the same for Jill Valentine; not ever.

There had been a surprising number of guards in the mansion, at least compared to how Albert Wesker remembered it. From their reaction to his arrival, he had not been expected. For years, _years¸_ Spencer had managed to stay completely off the maps. The first to die had been the ones guarding the driveway, and then he took care of the ones lining the roadway, disposing of the bodies in the shrubs. He couldn't take any risks, if they showed up, if tonight was it and he had been right, he wanted everything to go smoothly. He wanted to kill Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield once and for all.

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><p>He had taken care of the guards throughout the house effortlessly. Their bullets, their tasers, did nothing to Wesker. He dodged them and took out the ones who had fired before the bullets had stopped flying. Blood was everywhere, over everything. It was an absolute massacre; a massacre of one. Wesker knew there were more than just men guarding the mansion, but he saw no reason to take the long way around. He killed the humans, all but the one, and left the nightmares that lurked in the darker parts of the house. <em>Oh, and they will have to go through those nightmares.<em> He had thought. Wesker knew the layout of the house like the back of his hand, though he hadn't been there in years, the layout was exactly the same. As he had gone through the main doors at the top of the stairs, he had ensured that the BSAA pair would not be able to get to him that easily. Seeing the security control box, he had destroyed it by punching a whole through it. Luckily there had been no annoying intruder sound, so that had proved lucky to him.

The upstairs hallway was absolutely silent. By know, the old man would know. If nothing else, if not from the screaming of his servants, or the disruption in the security system, he would feel it. He would feel it because Wesker could feel it. Wesker's footsteps along the carpeted floor were silent, and he made no more noise than his very shadow as he moved along. He reached the grand double doors and paused, knowing that by now, Chris and Jill would be at least approaching the mansion, if not already at the door. He did not have very long to do what he'd come for, so he waited just another brief moment, before placing a gloved hand on one of the doors and gently pushing it open.

The large room was almost completely dark, lit only by some lanterns and candles mounted on the pillars around the room. A large, empty floor with a marble like appearance shone in moonlight and lightning flashes which came from the three large, paneled windows which took up most of the wall opposite the grand double doors. From this room, Spencer could over look the mountains and valleys and forests which surrounded his mansion. On the other three walls were enormous bookshelves and glass cases, all of which held volume after volume. Mostly they were about Umbrella, about Spencer's work, but some were important. Some held secrets that even Wesker did not know about. From behind his shades, Wesker's eyes moved over the room. The target of their searching sat in a wheelchair, his back to one of the huge paneled windows. Old and frail, Spencer was hooked up to several machines all of which were assisting in keeping him alive. He was dressed clad, in a robe and slippers. His thinning, white hair was slicked back and his breathing, though monitored, was calm.

"I always knew you'd come." His voice was soft, but strong, and it echoed throughout the room. "I knew you'd come crawling back to me, eventually."

Wesker felt a tension throughout his body, an uneasy sort of feeling that he could never seem to shake. It was something that no matter how apathetic Wesker thought himself to be, that he could never completely get rid of. He was only ever able to push it aside, pretend that it wasn't there. Some nights, he spent hours awake, contemplating what this feeling was. A tightness, an anxiety that always made Wesker feel as if he needed to do something. He knew it had something to do with Spencer, he had always suspected it but had never had any solid evidence to support his theory.

"Spencer." Wesker's cold voice was much louder, and much more powerful that Spencer. He was filled with anger; hatred. He was sick of this old man, but before he killed him, before he ended the misery and pain that Spencer had brought upon his life, Wesker was going to get answers.

"My child." The old man said, saying the words of a father, but the coldness of his voice took away any falsehood that that is how he saw Wesker. He studied his creation, and somehow he knew that Wesker had come to kill him.

"I've to come know the truth. And you are going to tell me." Wesker's slight accent was accentuated as he spoke slowly and clearly to Spencer. He took a few steps closer to Spencer, further out into the open space. A flash of lightening lit up the entire room briefly, before letting the candles continue their flickering glow.

"You are going to tell me everything."

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><p>The door of the mansion closed shut behind Jill as she joined Chris in the entrance hall. It was deserted and creepy, a strange smell hung in the air. Chris and Jill took two cautious steps forwards. In front of them was a grand staircase, which led up then branched off on either side, both sides leading up to the second story, all of which was an open, balcony like floor. A giant chandelier hung, unlit over the room. The marble floor curved around the back of the staircase, where there was probably a door or more rooms. To their left and right were large, polished wooden doors, each with intricate carvings on them. The pair stood in absolute silence for several moments, guns at the ready in front of them, listening for any signs of life. They heard and saw none.<p>

Deciding for the most part that the place was safe, Chris took a slow step forward, his foot slipping slightly on something. Taking a step back and looking down, he gasped slightly. Jill looked at the floor and took a breath, tensing up and feeling her heart rate pick up slightly. There was a large, red smear across the center of the floor, the strong coppery smell telling the two that it was blood. It was still shiny in the candle light, and Jill looked around even more carefully. Whatever had happened, hadn't happened too long ago. Chris realized this too, and became all the more weary.

"Those look locked." Chris said, nodding to the two large doors off to their right and left. Jill's eyes moved to the stair case and followed the balcony around the room to two doors which were directly over each of the two on their floor. Her eyes moved back down the stairs, to the hallway on either side. She turned to Chris and nodded in that direction. Chris nodded, understanding that she wanted to go that way.

They moved down the left corridor, going under the archway and down to small sets of stairs, until they were in a small sort of doorway. A single light hung here, illuminating the enclosed area. Against the wall that was to their right, was a lever. In front of them was a sort of block on the wall, in the center of which was a hole intended for a crank. To the left was another, darker hallway which went down someways and then looked as if it dropped off. Chris and Jill both sincerely hoped that they would not have to go down there, but a horrible nagging feeling made them just know that they would.

Chris investigated the crank device a bit more, figuring out that if they needed to go down the dark hallway to their left, they'd need to find the crank that fit there.

"What is it with this guy and cranks?" Chris asked Jill with a sigh.

"He's a man of refined tastes." Jill said, a smile in her voice. If nothing else, she loved to tease her partner.

"He's obsessed, that's what he is." A serious tone still in Chris's voice. He loved his partner, but this was no time to joke around. They'd come for information and Chris was going to do anything he had to in order to get it. He turned back to face the lever in the wall. He moved towards it and placed a gloved hand on it, pulling it down and releasing it. A loud clicking was heard from outwards and above them, echoing around the empty mansion, signaling that a lock had been released. Jill cringed, though by now anyone who may have been around was either hiding or didn't want them to be aware of their presence.

The pair went out the other hallway, back into the main area they had just come from. Figuring that since the clicking had come from above them, that whatever locked they'd just opened must be up there. They went towards the staircase and began moving up the blood streaked stairs one at a time. As they got halfway, another flash of lightening lit up the area and a body fell from the balcony above. Gasping, Jill and Chris moved back several steps, their hearts pounding, but the body showed no signs of life at all as it thudded against the steps and rolled down several of them. Chris looked up at Jill, still breathing hard from the slight shock, and she nodded to him. Chris put his finger to the device in his ear.

"Eagle 6 to nest, do you read?" He said, the nervousness in his voice showing through.

"We read you Eagle 6, go ahead."

"We found some men down." Chris and Jill had moved up the rest of the stairs and were on the second floor landing. Up here were two gates on either side of the stairs, and beyond them the bodies of at least half a dozen men slouched against the walls and lying on the floors, blood everywhere. Each one had a horrible looking wound in their chests, as if they'd been impaled with the same object. _What in the hell could have done all this?_ "Judging by their wounds, it looks like they were physically assaulted. I figure they're probably Spencer's security. Lord only knows what killed them."

"Roger that." Came the crackled response. The lightening was certainly taking its toll on clear communications. "We knew this mission wouldn't be a cake walk. Use extreme caution."

Chris and Jill moved to a large doorway in front of them, which appeared to lead to the rest of the house. The bodies were thick here, and not a single one moved. There was hardly a smell, which meant the bodies were fresh. Chris moved to the doorway and pushed. It didn't budge. Looked around, he saw a small panel on the wall. Jill moved to it and stooped slightly to investigate.

"It's been disabled." She straightened and looked at the very solid looking door. "However we're going to get to Spencer, it won't be through here."

Chris sighed again, and turned to look at the doorways leading down either side of this main door. "Nothing's ever easy, is it?"

"We'll have to go through the mansion, anyway we can." Jill said.

Guns in front of them, Chris Redfield and Jill Valentine went to explore the rest of this god forsaken place, fully prepared to become lost in this nightmare.

* * *

><p>Wesker was pacing. It was a habit he had picked up long ago, and something he did when he was desperately trying to remain calm and take in what he was being told. His face betrayed no emotion to Spencer, providing no reaction to what he was being told. His hands were folded behind his back as he moved, another habit he had picked up when he was trying his hardest not to prematurely murder the old man.<p>

"The Progenitor Virus was everything I had wanted. It was my past, my present and my future. It would have been the key to everything." Spencer laughed; a weak sound that cracked and turned into a hacking cough. A dull grin spread across the old man's face, making the wrinkles in his face much more pronounced. "And it was. It is. I was going to use it to my advantage, to create the only thing I'd ever wanted."

Spencer was explaining everything, everything that Wesker had never known the answers to, and everything that he had never been able to learn about through his years of painstaking research. Wesker listened in silence as Spencer told him about the origins of it all; of his plans. It didn't take much for him to figure out what Spencer had said. Through his spying and from everything Spencer was saying, a horrible truth was sinking in and settling in Wesker's mind. Something he'd always suspected but never thought could actually be true. Wesker was learning the truth about his creation.

"A new superior breed of humans, given birth by the progenitor virus." The old man paused, coughing slightly and catching his breath. Wesker paced the wheelchair, hands by his sides, clenching into fists and then releasing again. His heart was doing a strange, skipping pulse, and the tension through his body was tightening. "The Wesker children...were entrusted with endless potential. Of them, only one survived; you."

Spencer felt a bitterness inside of him that he'd always felt when he thought about his children. The Wesker children were supposed to have been everything. They were have supposed to spread the way for his new, perfect world. They had been weak; they had all died, all except Albert. The one now pacing the room.

Wesker had made his way over to one of the large windows. He stood, clenching his jaw, the force of what Spencer had just said hitting him like a wave, and with that wave came an anger so intense that it flooded him and made him want to rip the old man limb from limb.

"Are you saying I was manufactured?" Wesker said, his voice its usually cold, emotionless tone. Spencer felt the bitterness spread. What could this rejection know? How could he possibly understand what a waste of time it all was. Spencer gripped the arms of the wheel chair and bent forward, a wave of sickness coming over him.

"I was to become a god." His voice was shaking with anger. He coughed several times, his heart beating weakly in his chest. "Creating a new world, with an advanced race of human beings. However, all was lost with Raccoon City."

By the window fury was flooding through Wesker. It was like a beating drum, pulsing through him so forcefully it was all he could do to control it. His fists clenched into a tight fist by his side, the force of it making the muscles through his arm grow tight beneath his clothing. His jaw was tight, and he could feel a twitching in his temple. He took a deep and steadying his breath, raising his head in his moment of clarity. A flash of lightening illuminated him entirely, the reds of his eyes burning with his anger, fading to a dull glow once the light outside had faded.

"Despite that setback, your creation still holds great significance." He coughed again, his heart missing several beats, his lungs trying feebly to get in all the air they could. "Now my candle burns dimly." He grunted as he pushed himself to his feet. Putting his hand to his aching back he took a step from the wheelchair. Wesker had turned from the window and took several steps towards Spencer, his intent burning clearly in his mind.

"Ironic, isn't it? For one who has the right to be a god." Spencer spat. It wasn't fair, none of it. That he be so sick, when it was _he_ who had come up with the perfect formula to live and to be invincible. He took a breath, then began to turn to face his remaining child. "To face his own mortality." He finished weakly. He had to look up in order to meet Wesker's eyes. He was so much taller than Spencer, and stronger. Spencer breathed weakly, looking at his creation before him. Regardless of the failures he had suffered, Spencer had always been somewhat proud of Albert. He had survived.

Wesker looked down at Spencer, his head held high. This pathetic old man, who thought so much as to think himself a deity, seemed so pathetic to Wesker. He finally understood everything. He finally realized how stupid he was to have ever been scared of this man.

"The right to be a god." Wesker spoke Spencer's words and paused. The fury came so quickly that it took him over entirely. Quicker than Spencer could realize, Wesker drew back his right hand and drove it faster than a bullet through the old man's chest, driving it clear through to the other side. Blood practically flew out of the wound, and the Spencer let out a gasp which very soon turned into a gurgle. Blood filled his throat and mouth and trickled out of his mouth. The pain was unbearable, and Spencer immediately felt all the life leaving his body.

With Wesker's left hand, he grabbed Spencer's shoulder and pulled him close, driving his right arm further and deeper into the old man. He moved his head closer to the pathetic old man's, preparing to prove to him how disgusting and weak he really was.

"That right is now mine." Wesker said with such finality that it made him flood with the power of it. He withdrew his arm with as much force as he had inserted it, and with a last rattling gasp, the old man fell to his knew, his hand grasping numbly where Wesker's had just been. The shock of it was keeping some of the pain at bay, some, but nowhere near enough to quell the weakness that moved through him. He fell backwards, his arm hitting a step, and his body rolled down the remaining three stairs, dead before he hit the floor.

"The right to be a god?" Wesker said to the dead man as he took a few steps forwards to look down at his handy work. "You? Arrogant even until the end. Only one truly capable of being a god deserves that right." He said. These words settled within him, and a feeling of great calm came over him. The tension was gone. Any feeling of anxiety, fear, uneasiness...all gone. He took one last look down at the old man, feeble and broken, and turned his back on him. He walked back over to the window and looked outside. The weather was actually quite fitting to this night, he thought.

_All that's left to be done is to rid myself of Redfield and his annoying partner. Then I will be completely free. At last._

* * *

><p>~So there you have it! I know, a lot of that was from cutscenes and Lost in Nightmares, but I can't just skip all the background information! I promise, things start getting interesting next chapter...after all, Jill and Wesker are about to go on a trip together ;)<p>

EDIT; Wow! All these reviews already xx Anyways, I realize there's no breaks in between - I did put some in, but for some reason they aren't showing up x_x For now, I've tried to edit in some space between the sections. I'm gonna keep trying to fix it so that there's a clear break between them, so bear with me! And thank you again x3


	3. The Unknown Goodbye

w00t, finally, another chapter! I know I started another fic, but I'm going to work on both. Sorry this took so long, university has been hectic. Anyways, this chapter might be a bit boring for those of you who have played Lost Nightmares. This is, essentially, a _very_, shortened walkthrough of the game. For those who haven't played it, this is basically what happens. I just changed a few things and made it sound much easier than it is. It's a tad shorter than Chapter 1, but we're getting to the good stuff! We lose our Jill next chapter...stay tuned!

I appreciate any and all reviews, whether it be constructive criticism, compliments or just general feedback.

**Disclaimer; **All characters and most plot is not mine, copyright entirely of _Capcom; Resident Evil series._

**Warning; **Minor violence.

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><p>The mansion was like a maze, and Chris and Jill didn't let their guard down for a second. Continuously passing by the pile of corpses in the upper main hallway did nothing for their nerves and pounding hearts, and the creaks and groans of an old mansion made it even worse. After trying both doors on the main floor, to the left and right of the grand front doors, the assumption that they were locked proved to be correct. The pair had grimly resigned to trying the upstairs doors, Chris knowing that the only thing they were going to find was the lever that led to basement. He couldn't even begin to imagine what was down there.<p>

The first winding corridor had led them to a bedroom, which Jill had suggested to belong to Spencer himself. Chris hadn't thought they were so lucky, suggesting maybe it was the room of the guard's captain, or perhaps an on- hand scientist. Every corner they came to was an ordeal in itself, Chris edging forwards and swinging his gun to affirm nothing was hidden and lying in wait.

Jill's sense of foreboding had grown steadily worse, though she kept a calm demeanour; she didn't want to give Chris the extra worry about her, and she knew he would. He always worried about her. While Chris played the soldier, Jill had time to observe the walls around them. This place was old, that was for certain, and Spencer didn't appear to be diligent about housekeeping. While tidy and organized, free of clutter, the mansion was still dusty. The old wallpaper covering the walls peeling and water stained in the corners. The old, decorative plates and photographs were covered in layers of dust. Pictures of Spencer watched them moving, from their homes behind dusty panes of glass. Jill had the unnerving sense that the eyes moved wherever they went.

Having found nothing but some old, hand written books in the bedroom, they left and moved back to the main entrance, walking across a carpeted pathway to the door on the opposite side of the room. A flash of lightening brought a flash of memory to Jill; groaning and gun shots, nothing but fear and adrenaline keeping her going.

"Kinda takes you back, doesn't it?" She asked quietly. Her grey eyes turned to look at Chris, and she saw his eyebrows draw together. Regret pulled at her, and she felt bad for hinting at what she had.

"To Raccoon City?" His green eyes turned to meet hers, questioning, and she nodded once, trying to look apologetic. Everything that had happened, all he had been through…she knew how hard it was for him to think back on it. _But it made you stronger. _She thought. _Better._

"Unfortunately, yeah." Chris said in agreement, his eyes moving back to what was ahead of them, making sure nothing blocked their way over to the next doorway. "That's where all this started."

"Hard to believe that was eight years ago." She sighed, reminiscently. "I guess I am getting older."

"You're not the only one." Chris said, the ghost of a smile on his face. For a second, just a second, Jill saw the boy she had met, way back in S.T.A.R.S.; stubborn and resistant, strong willed, but good hearted, remembering how she had admired the way he stood up to Wesker when he had bullied Chris. How long ago that was now, and how different their lives were. Sometimes she wondered how they had made it this far.  
>When they reached the opposite side, they came to a break in the floor where the old material had given way. Chris and Jill looked at each other and gave a grim nod. While Chris knelt and flattened his hands in front of him, Jill took several steps backwards, all the while calculating the distance in her mind. She took a breath and ran at Chris, counting each foot fall before stepping on Chris's outstretched hands and launching herself over the gap, tucking and rolling a perfect landing on the other side. Pride swelled in her chest as she turned to nod at Chris.<p>

"I'll go unlock it." She said, slipping through the doorway, praying there would be an easy way down. Chris ran back down the central staircase. Once Jill had unlocked the doorway, the pair explored what turned out to be an old dining room, and after practicing an almost forgotten musical talent, Chris and Jill returned to the single light in front of the hole in the wall.

Once Chris had run under while Jill turned the crank, Chris turned a rusty crank and let Jill run under in turn to meet up with him again. Once they had reunited, they turned and walked the remaining short distance down the dungeon like hallway, until they reached a metal doorway, illuminated by a single naked bulb. Pushing through, they followed down another short hallway until they came to a drop. Chris cautiously stuck his head over and saw it was only about a six foot drop. He crouched, and leapt down, landing in a puddle, and checking his surroundings, before Jill dropped down beside him.

"What is that _smell_?" Jill asked in disgust. Chris inhaled and had to restrain himself from gagging. It was a smell that reminded him of one he had smelled before, and it had come from things Chris had hoped he would never have to deal with again.

"Dunno, but I hope we don't run into whatever's making it" He said, knowing full well they had been forced to come down this way for a reason. It was all Jill could do to stop from snorting.

"And when have we ever been that lucky?"

The joking and idle chatter came to a stop the moment the pair got only a few feet into the dungeon like basement. The corridors were long and dirty, rust covering the barred cells to their left and right. Dried and frail looking corpses lay scattered, leaning against walls and lying face down on the ground. Rats nibbled at their flesh, and squeaked, running away from the living, breathing partners now descending further into this hell. Chris's eyes moved cautiously down the hallway, and up onto the balcony above them. He had the horrible feeling that he and Jill were not alone down here, and he dreaded meeting whatever lurked out of sight. Jill was braced for anything, gun at the ready, and uneasy about the stench, growing stronger as they moved.

"I have a bad feeling about this place." Jill said quietly. The chains that hung from the ceiling clinked against each other, and rattled slightly in the breeze. A rat ran by her feet and a musky stench ran by with it.

"Me too. Keep close." Chris said, nodding in grim agreement. They reached the end of a first long hallway, and were greeted by a grotesque looking coffin, a rotting corpse impaled on spikes inside of it. Jill held her breath, and Chris shuddered at it. He had seen far worse, but the sights were ones he never got used to.

They began down a second hallway, when something moved on the walkway above them. Chris reached out and grabbed Jill's arm, yanking her into one of the open cells, heart slamming against his chest. They stood, still as statues, their eyes pinned on the ground for a shadow, their ears listening to the drag of its chains.

"What the hell was that?" Jill whispered.

"Let's not find out." Chris whispered back, their voices hardly audible. Several minutes later, the pair had found they had no choice but to move up where that _thing_ had just been, but the corridor was empty.

"Where did it go?" Chris asked, looking around. "I don't hear it."

"Let's not find out." Jill said, echoing his earlier words. The pair continued moving through the dungeon, their fear increased now that they had caught a glimpse of one of the guardians. They moved down another set of stairs and came to a short, dark hallway, blocked off at the end by fallen rubble. Chris sighed, "Guess we'll have to find a different way though." but Jill had frozen. She heard a muffled grunting, and what sounded like something being dragged across the floor. Chris seemed to have heard it to because he froze, and turned slightly facing down the hallway. The sound seemed to stop entirely, the two standing, hearts slamming and breath held, before a crash made them both leap into action.

A spiked hammer broke through the blocked off wall, and the guardian pushed its way through. It was huge, and the smell that came with it was unbearable. It wore a cloth over itself, and had a large hood covering what was sure to be a grotesque face.

The pair ran backwards, and down the hallway that went off to the right of the stairs. The creature followed them, and Chris was panicking, looking for a way out. The last thing he wanted to do was waste his ammo on this thing, but he wasn't sure if they could get away from it.

"Chris, this way!" Jill ran down the small hallway, the thing rounding the corner they had just come from. They cut back across and ran through the hole in the wall, guns ahead of them and hearts pounding. Running down another winding hallway, they got to a room with a ladder in the middle, leading up to a doorway. Looking behind them and seeing the thing coming after them, Jill scurried up the ladder, Chris pulling himself up quickly behind her. They ran through the doorway and slammed it behind them, heavy and made of metal, and pushing the metal bar through to close it.

Panting, they stood in yet another gloomy, smelly hallway. They couldn't help but look at one another and grin.

"Duck and run; my favourite tactic." Jill said with a smirk, and Chris held back a laugh. It was one of the things he really liked about her; she never let anything get to her too much. Chris started walking ahead of her, not letting the moment of happiness distract him from the issue at hand. He was getting annoyed at this nonsense, and wanted nothing more than to bully the information out of Spencer, apprehend him and get on their way. Jill was already thinking of a nice, warm shower when they got back to the base. They were a few feet apart when the floor broke.

Jill felt the ground go from beneath her feet, and it was all she could do not to scream. She heard a gasp from Chris echo, but then silence. She landed on her side, ducked and rolled down until she came to a stop in murky water. Jumping to her feet, her hands grasped at her utility belt and pack, realizing with mute horror that they were gone. She bent and felt around in the water around her, but her search brought her no relief. She heard a crackle, and realized with some hope that her walkie hadn't been destroyed.

"Jill, are you okay?" Chris's voice was fuzzy, but audible, and she felt a wave of relief hearing his voice.

"I'm fine." She said, keeping her voice low, but sighing with relief. She didn't feel safe here, and now that Chris wasn't with her, she felt overcome with vulnerability. "But I lost most of my gear."

"Same here." He said after a moment. "Alright. Try to find a way out of there and I'll find a way to meet up with you."

"Copy that." She said, with professional courtesy. "Watch your back."

"You too." The talkie crackled off. Jill walked cautiously down a small hallway, crouching to look through the barred lower wall. She reached the end of the hallway, and a small chest was hidden in an alcove. Listening to be sure nothing was nearby, she crept over to it and lifted the lid, the inside revealing a blue tinted triangle. It was a shard of rock, and Jill studied it's broken off edges. It was cut too evenly to be an accident; this had been placed in that chest for a reason. She pocketed the item and crept off.

Several minutes passed, and more than once, Jill feared she would never find Chris down here and panic threatened to overcome her. Each time she managed to push the fear down and keep going. _He said he'll find me. He always finds me. _

Chains shook to her right, and the brunette froze, shivering from the cold, damp clothing, feeling vulnerable with no weapon. They sounded as if they were getting closer, and she took several steps backwards and a hand snaked around her mouth. Her heart leapt out of its chest, but she turned around, Chris had a finger to his lips, and her heart once again settled. The pair backed into a dark corner, Jill's back pressed against Chris's chest. She couldn't help but feel jittery at the closeness. _Now is not the time._ She thought, sternly. _I knew he'd find me, though._

The decaying monster walked by down the hallway, dragging its large, hooked hammer behind it and oblivious to the pair hiding. Jill felt Chris's heart hammering in his chest.

"We have no weapons." She said, fear ebbing at her voice. "We have to sneak past it."

"I didn't see any easy way out." Chris's voice was low, but he was managing to keep calmness in his tones. "The whole room is all half built walls and ladders and empty crates. It has a large, solid stone corridor in the middle, blocked by a barred gate. It could be a way out, but there's only a ladder on the other side." The chains dragged by in the water, somewhere nearby, on the opposite side of the wall they now took shelter behind. The comment stirred something in Jill.

"Is it accessible, this corridor?" She asked, her fingers touching the hard shard in her pocket. She looked up at Chris who frowned.

"As long as that thing doesn't come by, yes." He looked pensive. "There was another crank too..." They shared a look.

"And a puzzle?" Jill asked, pulling the piece out. Chris's mouth drew in a hard line. "We'll have to be fast about it."

They took off down the wet hallway, doing their best not to splash the water too loudly. They rounded a corner and took off again, pausing every so often to listen. Chris took her to the centerpiece; it truly was a large corridor, blocked off by a heavy looking barred doorway. Jill looked all around it's edges, and saw that the whole thing could be lifted up. How safe that was, she didn't know. Her eyes followed the wall's edge down until they fell upon a crank.

"I don't suppose that works." Chris moved over and pushed down on it, a creaking noise, and then nothing. "Nope." He said, quietly. Jill frowned, every instinct in her body telling her they were wasting too much time, standing in too vulnerable a position.

Jill's eyes found the puzzle box just as they heard the echo of chains from far off to their left. She moved quietly through the filthy water over to it and gently slid in its missing piece. A resounding _click_ echoed off the dungeon's walls, and the duo froze. The chains kept rattling and the dragging continued, the sound getting fainter as the guardian of the dark moved further away.

"Try it now." She said, confidence in her voice. Chris regarded her with a look of admiration, one which he frequently gave her. She couldn't help the smile. "Hurry!" The thought of the roaming creature wiped the smile off her face as quickly as it had come.

Chris placed both of his strong hands on the crank and leaned against, putting considerably more effort into it now. Slowly, and heavily, the large gate rose, higher and higher, revealing a small room, as wet and dark as the rest of the basement was. Jill saw another crank inside, meant to open the door from the inside out. The spikes swung down on them just as Jill made it into the room.

"Chris!" Jill shouted, as the door dropped down with a _bang_ behind her. Chris had released the crank. "I'll distract it, get the door open again!" His voice sounded much too far away and she felt a fear rising in her chest. _I have to save him, I have to. _She heard another loud smash of the hammer, and it shook her. She took a steadying breath, and put both hands on the crank, pushing down as hard as she could. Jill had nowhere near Chris's strength, and the rust hurt her, digging into the soft skin of her palms. The water was hitting her calves in small, splashing waves, vibrating from the heavy steps made from whatever was now hunting Chris. It was all Jill could do to not panic.

Despite the heaviness of the door, her cranking began to make it rise, painfully slow, inch by inch. It was getting higher and higher, and finally Jill could see on the other side.

"Chris, it's open!" She shouted, her arms shaking, holding the crank up for all she was worth. A moment went by, and then Chris appeared, running and splashing through the water, the hooded, decaying figure close behind him. Just as he splashed through the thing took a step to come into the small room, and Chris shouted "let go!"

Jill released her hands and the crank spun wildly, the large, spiked door slamming down on top of the monster, causing it to let out a horrible shout, before a sickening crunch that echoed through the basement. The pair stood there, panting and unmoving, their hearts pounding, staring at the rubble, the water sloshing around by their feet. Chris looked up at Jill and she looked at him, relief flooding her. Fear that he would get hurt was always with her, but the intensity with which she felt it scared her.

"You okay?" He was bent over, catching his breath, but he looked up at her when she asked him.

"Yeah. I've dealt with worse than that thing." He said with a small grin. Before them now, stood a ladder, leading up to what looked like a sewer top.

"Up and out, I guess." He said, looking at her. Trepidation of what awaited them filled Jill. As she started to climb, listening to Chris climbing up behind her, a dread filled her. She knew.

_The worst is yet to come._

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><p><em><em>dumdumdummmm. We all know who they run into next. Next chapter will also be shortish, but we're approaching a sad goodbye for Mr. Redfield.

until next time~


	4. The Sound of Silence

This chapter wrote itself, really. Again, nothing new here, anyone who played Lost in Nightmares, or even just the main story of RE5 knows this one, but after this the fun stuff starts. I really enjoyed writing this, it's led me to discover that I like writing action scenes. Anyway, enough idle chatter, and on with the reading!

**Disclaimer; **All characters and most plot is not mine, copyright entirely of _Capcom; Resident Evil series._

**Warning; **Violence and one swear word (oooh).

* * *

><p><em>"'Hear my words that I might teach you;<em>  
><em>take my arms that I might reach you."<em>  
><em>But my words, like silent raindrops fell,<em>  
><em>and echoed<em>  
><em>in the wells of silence."<em>

__**- - _The Sound of Silence, Simon & Garfunkel_**

Jill pushed the sewer cover aside and pulled herself out of the hole in the ground. She moved quickly aside so that Chris could crawl out after her. Jill took a few moments to sit, panting to herself, relieved that they had managed to escape. Once Chris pulled himself out, he kicked the top back over the hole and leaned backwards against a wall.

"We must be towards the back of the place." Jill observed, looking around. The pair had emerged in a small alleyway that twisted around old, brick walls. As they caught their breath, and rose to their feet, they realized it was silent. There were lights back here, positioned every so often against the old stone, causing dark shadows to gather in corners. No more than a minute passed, before they gave each other grim stares.

"Spencer has to be back here." Chris said, looking around. There was only one path, and it turned a corner and led away from the basement entrance. The pair moved forwards and around, where the wall broke off and there was a narrow, sheer drop. Chris leaned his head over, and saw that they were walking through an arched walkway, on an edge of a river being fed by a small waterfall. The water was pounding and rushing downwards and away from them, towards what he knew was the edge of the large cliff that the mansion sat atop of. They moved up stone steps, listening as hard as they could, and feeling vulnerable without any weapons. Chris, at least, still had his knife on his shoulder.

Lightening flashed in the distance, and a crack of thunder echoed around the stone walls. Large raindrops were starting to hit the ground, making dark, wet splash marks. They rounded another corner at the top of the stairs and climbed a second set. They emerged in a roofed hallway, lined with high windows and more paintings. At the end of hallway, large red spatters of blood were on the wall, and three guardsmen lay dead on the ground, the same terrible wounds in all three of their chests. The first body had a bloody face, lying on his back. They were cautious, manoeuvring around him, and came across a second. He was slumped backwards against the wall, and in his lap sat a handgun. Chris stooped and picked it up, checking the clip.

"It wasn't fired." He said. The poor man had only managed to draw it before he was killed.

"There used to be a door." Jill said. The shattered remains of a doorway and splintered door lay on the ground. _That explains the sudden home like change._ She thought. Another slouched corpse against a wall had another gun, this one not fired either. Around the final corner, a huge set of double doors stood open, revealing to the pair a carpeted hallway, decorated identically to the main room of the mansion. Jill's heart was pounding and tightness had wound its way into her chest. Chris studied her, and realized how uneasy she looked.

"It's alright." He said, gently. He wanted nothing more than to reach out and touch her cheek, make her relax. She nodded, and began to make her way slowly down the hallway. It curved around in a large semi-circle, leading them both to a final, large set of wooden double doors, shut and undamaged. The only noise at all was their feet against the ground and the rumbles of thunder from outside. Chris looked to Jill, and nodded towards the door. She nodded in understanding, taking a good look at her partner. Jill was praying that this was going to be easy. They reached the door and turned their sides to it, facing one another. No sound at all came from the other side.

_Maybe it's empty. Maybe he's gone._ Jill's head momentarily filled with the relief of not finding Spencer. Their mission here would be useless, but at least they could go home. At least nothing would have happened to Chris.

Jill's eyes went to Chris, whose brows were creased, and was deep in concentration. He caught her eyes briefly, and nodded. In perfect sync, they rammed their arms into the door and stormed into the room, guns pointed dead ahead of them.

Spencer's body lay cold on the ground, but Jill and Chris could spare no time to react. A tall, broad figure stood in the window, and turned to look at the duo. It was a sight that sent a chill through Jill, and made Chris's hold his gun that much firmer.

A flash of lightening illuminated the entire room, and Albert Wesker turned, a smirk on his face, and eyes glowing like embers.

Jill's heart was hammering in her chest, and she allowed her eyes to skim over the body of Spencer, the hole in his chest identical to the ones on the guards outside. Chris's heart was frozen, and his whole body felt cold. This was not what was supposed to happen. _He_ should not be here. Spencer was supposed to tell them where Wesker was, and then they were supposed to apprehend him. Spencer was not supposed to be dead.

Wesker spent no time wasted with idle talk, and began taking steps towards the pair. Jill was about to shoot, when three shots came from Chris beside her. She looked at her partner briefly, and saw a look of such unmoving determination that Jill knew he was not leaving until Wesker was dead. Chris had always been hard at the thought of Wesker, refusing to discuss anything but tactics on how to kill him. Years ago, when Wesker had betrayed S.T.A.R.S., Chris had been devastated. Jill had urged him gently for months afterwards, begging him to tell her why he was so torn up about it, but he never had. She had always had her theories and ideas, but when she had brought them up to him, he had gotten so angry that he hadn't spoken to her for a week. His refusal to discuss whatever he and Wesker had once shared had hurt her at first, but he had always included her in his plans to put a stop to him, and for that she had always felt forgiven.

Jill added two shots of her own to the three of Chris's now aimed dead at Wesker, and what their former captain did stunned Jill almost into immobility.

Wesker moved, first left, then right, dodging the bullets as if they were nothing. He seemed as though he were disappearing and reappearing again, each time closer to the pair, and each time without Jill ever seeing him properly move. Her heart was pounding in her chest, and Chris was doing all he could to keep his weapon trained at Wesker. When the blonde had dodged the last bullet, he crouched and pounced, taking three quick steps at Chris so fast he was no more than a blur. He grabbed Chris's arm, twisting it harshly, making him lose his grip on the gun and grunt in a mixture of surprise and pain. Wesker's fist swung down on Chris's cheek, and then he reappeared on Chris's right, elbowing him in the gut and turning in a final movement, up handing him on the jaw and sending him sailing backwards. He had moved so quickly that Jill didn't even think three seconds had gone by.

The moment he finished with Chris, Wesker whipped around and darted straight to Jill. Her heart leapt and her breathing was barely coming properly, but she focused enough to try three shots at him. He dodged them as easily as he had the first five bullets, ducked down and grabbed her, his fingers forming an iron grip around her throat and slamming her backwards against one of the firm, wooden pillars. As if from far away, she heard the sound of her weapon clattering to the floor, but the only thing she could do was grab uselessly at his arm. His fingers felt like iron around her throat, and her feet were dangling, uselessly. Her own fingers clawed pathetically at his sleeve, but to no avail. Black spots were appearing in her eyes and her lungs felt deflated. Jill heard, she could have sworn, Wesker let out a grunt of amusement.

From across the room, Chris had struggled to his feet, and saw Wesker strangling his partner. Rage filled him, and he charged across the room and swung his fist at Wesker, who dodged it effortlessly, dropping Jill. The brunette felt her legs hit the ground and she crumpled, her palms flat against the floor, gasping for air, sucking every bit in she could. Her throat was pounding in pain, and Chris was furious. He swung again and again at Wesker, who dodged each one again and again, an infuriating smirk on his face all the while. Finally, Chris swung with his right hand and Wesker grabbed it, the same iron fist now squeezing on Chris's hand. He lowered his arm, and Chris let out another grunt of pain.

Wesker spun around, Chris's arm twisting painfully, causing him to double over to keep his elbow from snapping, when Wesker let go and landed a loaded punch to Chris's jaw again. This time, Chris had braced himself, and despite the throbbing in his cheek, whipped sideways, aiming a low kick at Wesker, who barely managed to swing his arm up to deflect it.

While Chris had been landing his attacks, Jill had regained her composure, and picked up her weapon. Rising to her feet and moving towards were the two men fought, she aimed three more shots directly at Wesker's head. Wesker's attack on Chris haulted for a split second, and he shoved Chris roughly out of the way of the shots, a move that surprised both Jill and Chris.

_Nobody and nothing is going to hurt Chris but him. _Jill thought bitterly.

Wesker skidded out of the way of the next bullets, and this time Jill anticipated his lightening fast movements, the end of her gun never missing her target. Wesker, however never let her hit him, twisting in the air, the bullets whipping past above and below him, moving as if in slow motion for him.

He landed, and faced Jill, whose gun clicked after the next shot. _Shit!_ She thought, but wasted no time in attacking him, tossing the emptied weapon aside and running towards him. Chris took advantage of the pause and attacked Wesker, again swinging a fist hard at him, and Wesker again blocking it. He pushed Chris out of the way just as Jill reached him, flipping her knife out of its pocket and stabbing forcefully at Wesker. Her former captain twisted her knife hand away from him as if it were nothing, and shoved his free hand into her stomach with so much force she flew backwards and slammed into one of the glass book cases, glass shattering and cascading down around her.

Chris swung at Wesker, again and again; the raw hatred so strong inside of him all he wanted was Wesker dead. Wesker too was getting frustrated with the feeble attempts on his life, and he easily hit Chris's fist away, elbowed him hard in the stomach and turned in a flash, his fist around Chris's throat pushing him high up in the air. Chris grunted in surprise, and Wesker slammed him down into the table, sliding Chris along so hard that deep gauges were left in the table. His former captain dragged him along the table and let go so that he flew off the end and hit the ground, sliding from the amount of force he had been thrown with, and landing when his shoulder hit the concrete ledge of the wall high window.

Jill was still reeling from the impact, crouched on the ground and panting, holding back a cry from a sharp pain in her side. She looked across the room and saw Chris lying on the ground, struggling to get to his feet. His face, Jill could see, was a mixture of pain and fear. Both of their weapons were spent and discarded, and Jill's knife and gotten lost amongst the pile of fallen books and debris. Wesker stood by the end of the table where he had released Chris and she could have sworn she heard him chuckling to himself.

_This is all a game to him. _A wave of sickness passed through her. _Now he's going to kill us._

Wesker moved then, taking slow, forceful steps towards Chris, his fist clenched at his side, Chris still struggling to gain his breath and fight off the pain that was pulling at every inch of him. Jill's eyes were trained on Wesker's hand, flexing and releasing, absolutely fixated on the repeated movement.

The cause of the injuries all of the guardsmen and Spencer himself suddenly became crystal clear to Jill. Clear that it had been Wesker, all of it, Wesker. Whatever he had done to himself, whatever he had become, he was unstoppable and now he was going to kill Chris.

Chris looked up at Wesker, and flinched away from him, a move that brought an ache to Jill's heart as she watched. Wesker reached down and grabbed Chris by the collar, pulling him high up into the air, making him squirm and try and get away, absolutely helpless. He was looking up at Chris, and a panic, a fear, so strong it made her sick took over Jill. From across the room, she knew Chris was about to die, and she couldn't let Wesker do that. If Wesker killed Chris, then he won.

"No!" She cried. It was as if nothing else in the world mattered, and the decision had come to her in a split second. The pair stood in front of the high, glass windows, and the edge of the room was over a huge canyon. Wesker wasn't anticipating her; with the right force... the way he was standing...it might work. Chris would be safe, and Wesker gone. Jill's life meant nothing to her in that moment and she rocketed towards them, her feet pounding the ground.

Wesker smirked up at Chris, who looked down at him, weak and helpless, and terrified. Wesker drew back his hand, flexing his fingers, his smirk triumphant and proud.

"Let's finish this." The words pierced through Chris, and he knew everything was over.

A scream echoed around the room, and suddenly Chris hit the floor. Somewhere above him, Jill slammed into Wesker, the impact sending both of them to the window and Chris being showered with wood and glass. The sound of glass breaking, a rush of wind and rain, and a sudden sick silence filled the room.

Chris leapt up, and ran to the window, grabbing the window pane. Broken shards of glass cut into his already aching hands, but he was immune to the pain, bead of blood trickling down the glass.

A sheer drop and a blurred movement of two figures falling down; down, far beneath Chris. His hand reaching uselessly and Jill's name was echoing over the canyon.

The rest was silence.

* * *

><p>Goodbye, Jill! I hope you're all enjoying this, I know I have a lot of people who've added this to their favourite stories and are anxiously awaiting alerts, so here you are! Please, let me know what you think, what you're expecting, what you like and all that in reviews!<p>

Until next time~


	5. Walls Are Built To Fall

When life takes over...  
>wow, I sure hope there's still some people around to read. University really swept me up, but now that I'm almost done, I'll have tons of time to write again. Enjoy! Read on!<p>

**Disclaimer; **All characters and most plot is not mine, copyright entirely of _Capcom; Resident Evil series._

**Warning; **Nada.

* * *

><p><em>"I was alone, staring over the ledge trying my best not to forget,<br>__all manner of joy, all manner of glee, and our one heroic_ pledge."  
><strong><em>- - Meds, Placebo<em>**

The shards of glass from the window fell around Jill like falling stars, scratching and cutting her skin as it tumbled by her. The wind was cold, so cold, and getting colder the more she fell. The falling itself felt as though it would never stop, and Jill could barely breathe. She fought against the stinging wind, and the biting cold to keep her eyes open, at least enough to see him; to stay away from him. If Jill Valentine was about to die, Albert Wesker was not the last person she wanted to see.

She kept catching glimpses of him, falling into nothingness beneath her. She couldn't tell if he was conscious or not, or whether he thought he could survive the fall. _I hope he can't. I hope it kills him._ Jill thought, desperately. If this didn't kill him, it would mean she died for nothing, and it meant she had abandoned Chris for nothing. Passing thoughts caused for wonder of whether there was even the slightest chance she was going to survive. It didn't seem likely, and she had no idea that the fall would be so huge. The endless black went on below her for what seemed like forever, with no hint of the ground in sight. Wesker was several feet below her, but he had twisted around and she could have sworn he was looking at her.

_ Get away from him, get away; try._

In mid air, there was only so much she could do, but she held the advantage of being at least fifty pounds lighter than him. She fell more slowly than he did. Her mind was a blur, full of memories, and regrets. The image of her long dead parents flashed through her mind, and the tears in her eyes became more than just because of the cold. She missed them, and suddenly found herself hoping that what people thought about death was true, that maybe she would get to be with them again. Jill had always kept a level mind, and cleared it of any hopes or illusions. When someone died, she had always known that they just went in the ground, and that was that. _Or became a zombie. _From there, her thoughts went to Raccoon City, and S.T.A.R.S., and Chris.

_Oh god, Chris, I am so sorry._ Jill thought. The thought of Chris made her regret the fall, regret all of it. _We should have ran, we should have just – _but Jill didn't finish her thoughts.

She slammed into rock, and her world went black.

* * *

><p>Chris hung there, his arm half out the window, his other hand clutching at the shards of glass on the window ledge. Blood was trickling from a gash in his glove from the glass, but he didn't feel it. Chris Redfield couldn't feel anything.<p>

_Move. Go get her. Go._ He launched himself away from the window, turning and running across the room, almost slamming into the abandoned wheelchair. Jill's gun and knife were discarded on the ground, and he felt as if the air was being sucked out of his lungs. _How will she fight? How will she get away? _Almost as if on autopilot, his hand found the wireless communicator in his ear, and he listened to the connecting beeps. A voice crackled on the other end, but Chris neither heard, nor cared what it told him.

"Help," he yelled at whoever was listening. "I need help, please, she fell. Jill fell, she's all alone." He couldn't think, he couldn't breathe, as he rocketed out of the room. The panel directly to the main hall had been destroyed, and the thought of whatever he and Jill hadn't killed lingered in his head, but he didn't care. Jill was outside somewhere, and he had to go get her. She was alone with Wesker, and Chris had to rescue her. His feet pounded against the carpeted hallway, and he threw himself down the stairs, not giving a thought to the creatures potentially still hiding in the now uninhabited mansion. When he reached the ladder, he nearly jumped down it, landing with a splash of musty, dirty water. Where they had dropped the door on the creature, its body lay there. The cracked and tossed aside pieces of the door indicated that the thing had tried to move it, but had died trying. Chris didn't think. His hand absently touched a gun in his belt, that at some point he had placed there. He didn't even remember picking the weapon up again, he just knew that he needed to get Jill. Leaping over the body and the broken door, he ran back through the maze on autopilot, with only his brown haired partner in his head.

Frustration was burning in him, and panic was setting in when he remember they hadn't _come_ down here; they had _fallen._ After several dead ends, Chris found a pile of rubble that must have slid down after Jill, since this wasn't the place he had fallen down. He kicked it, and it remained immobile. Placing his feet and hands carefully, he began to climb, slipping only a few times, and finally hoisting himself up to the floor above. He continued, fighting through the hallways and dungy smell, ignoring the distant rattle of chains. He climbed and ran and climbed and ran, his whole body numb and tingling. When he reached the gate they had cranked, the image of Jill cranking it open for him flashed across his mind, and he felt tears stinging his eyes, and rage filled him. He slammed his shoulder into the gate three times before it fell from its hinges. Bolting from the door, he ran as fast as he could and then he was outside, the rain falling steadily, lightening flashing across the sky.

_ The back, I have to get to the back._

There were rumbles, different from the thunder, and lights coming at Chris. _You called for backup._ He ran around the side of the house, stumbling through mud, shrubs and overgrown grass, his legs pumping, heart pounding so loudly it was all he could hear. Somewhere behind him, his name was being called, but nothing was registering in his brain right now except the unrelenting urge to find Jill. The cold air burned his lungs as he sucked in deep breaths, his boots pounding the mud, splashing it up onto his pants. The mansion loomed into the darkness, and from the outside seemed even more vast and impossible. Chris rounded several corners, thinking of the sliver of outdoors they had seen before they met Wesker.

_Water, listen for water._ But with the rain, this proved more difficult than need be. The edge came too quickly out of the darkness, and Chris fell backwards to stop himself from tumbling down the sheer drop. Panic was bubbling as he followed the edge of the crevice along the back of the house. His eyes moved up the stained brick and wood, until they landed upon a gaping black hole in the side of the place where a window used to be. Pieces of frame and moulding were hanging out of the window, and each lightening flash illuminated the room. Chris edged his way to the edge of the precipice and stared down. The blackness went on forever, and his eyes were stinging again.

* * *

><p>The sound of rain hitting rock surrounded Jill, and she was aware of cold ground under her cheek. She had landed on her stomach, and was soaked through her uniform. Her eyes fluttered open, and she lay there, completely still.<p>

_I'm alive._

When she tried to move, her entire body screamed in protest, and she groaned, holding still. The sensible part of her was telling her to stay there; that help would come. The ground had come much faster than she had thought, and she was relieved that she wasn't falling anymore. _He must be here, somewhere, he must. _She thought in a panic, knowing that she couldn't just lay there if he was. Her eyes flickered open again and stared ahead, seeing nothing. There was nothing but rain and darkness, but something wasn't quite right. The rain wasn't hitting the ground in some parts; in fact, there were only a few feet of ground before the rain was disappearing somewhere.

_Get up and look._

Standing up was an impossibility, she was in so much pain, so Jill resolved to slowly propping herself up on her arms. She turned her head to the side, and looked the other way. To her right was a rock wall, sloping upwards, beyond Jill's line of view. Ahead of her, anther two feet of ground before the rain started to disappear.

_You're not done falling yet._ She thought. _Shit shit shit._ But this wasn't a bad thing, she realized. Maybe she hadn't fallen too far, maybe she was still in sight of someone who might be looking down from the top of the cliff. Curiosity was getting the best of her, and she needed to see how far away from the ground she was. Jill figured that maybe if she could see Wesker's body, she could just hide on this ledge until help came. _If help came._

A sound jolted her to complete consciousness. It sounded of small rocks, and gravel sliding down a cliff face. It was coming from the left edge she had woken up to see. Slowly and cautiously, she edged herself a little closer, pain screaming from every inch of her body. Tears sprang to her eyes, and she had to bite her tongue to keep from crying out. If Wesker was down there, she didn't want him to know where she was, even though it wouldn't take much figuring out on his part. The sound of more pebbles falling made themselves heard through the rain, and Jill hesitated.

_ What if those are rocks falling from above. What if this ledge is going to break_. She edged forward a little more, and a little more. It was a definite edge; that much Jill could tell. _A little closer, a little closer..._ The rock seemed to almost creak beneath her and she froze. The fall had loosened the edge of rock she had collided with, and the sudden weight was testing it. Another sound, accompanied by more falling rocks came, louder and closer than before. Jill's heart was pounding so hard that sound came in waves to her. Dizziness was filling her head, and her skin was tingling. The rain was freezing and small puddles were forming. Jill was so close to the ledge now that if she outstretched her arm, her hand would stick off the edge. But getting to the ledge was the last thing Jill wanted to do. Her eyes were wide and trained on the edge. Several moments went by, and Jill went to move backwards at the same time Wesker's arm swung over the edge.

_ "NO!" _Jill screamed, as loud as she could, and he missed her as she pulled back. Pain was throbbing so badly in her arm that Jill feared she would pass out. Fear was pulling at her, and she felt like crying. The ledge seemed to get impossibly small, and Wesker was pulling himself up. He swiped at her and this time her snatched her, his hand tightening in an iron grip around her wrist, and Jill could feel the broken bones beneath crushing against each other.

"I am taking you with me." The fury in his voice was ice cold, and it terrified Jill to her core. With a hard tug, Jill tumbled over the ledge like a rag doll, and Wesker's grip wasn't getting any lighter. _He's holding me to him. He's keeping us together. _Jill realized. Struggling was absolutely pointless, and the pain of Jill's broken and bleeding body was unbearable. Jill squeezed her eyes shut and wished more than anything that she would just pass out.

Sooner than she thought, she got her wish.

* * *

><p>"<em>Jill!"<em> His shout echoed down, but between the gusting wind and the thunder, he didn't see how she'd ever hear him. He was foolishly scrambling down a small series of jutting rock, when firm hands grabbed him by the collar and hoisted him up.

"Redfield, stop. STOP!" Chris was struggling, but found himself locked in the grasp of Kirk, a friend and colleague from the BSAA. "You can't just go down there by yourself, you'll fall down there too."

_ But it's Jill, I have to._

"I have to get down there, she's in danger, I have to rescue her, I-"

Chris froze, and his head snapped towards the ledge. _I heard...I could have sworn I heard... _The thought of Jill down there somewhere, screaming for help, tore at Chris's heart. He had been told by his captain, his friends, hell, even his sister a thousand times over that being Jill's partner would only work if he kept his feelings out of it, but right now, they were consuming him.

"I know, Chris, believe me I know. Listen, there's repelling gear, the rescue squad is bringing it over now." Kirk's voice brought Chris back to reality, and he suddenly became aware of all the activity at the site. Chris looked past Kirk to see trucks rolling in, armed men jumping out and dragging huge cables over to where they stood. "We're going to send a rescue team down, there's a chance she could have landed on a ledge..."

"She's with Wesker." Chris was panting for breath, struggling to get the oxygen he needed. The image of the two of them tangled together, flying out into the dark was burned into his mind. "She tackled him, and it's my fault. I was going to die, she saved me but now she's gone and I have to save her, Kirk, I _have_ to..."

Kirk clenched his teeth together and shook Chris firmly. "Redfield, you listen to me. You're in shock, you need to take a few deep breaths and calm down, or else I cannot allow you to repel down there with us. Do you understand?"

The look in Chris's eyes must have spoken volumes to Kirk, because the annoyance in his features softened, and his grip on Chris's shoulders. Kirk sighed. "Look Chris, I know. I know that it's Jill, and I know the history between the two of you, and I _know _how you feel about her. But you need to listen to me. We aren't going to get anywhere with you not in control, and if you want to find her, you need to calm down. Okay?"

The heartbeat in Chris's ears made all the talking and sound come in pulses, fading in and out, but he managed to intake what was being said to him. He closed his eyes. _Breathe. Just breathe._ He opened them, and gave Kirk a nod. "How long since I contacted you?"

"The pair of you entered the mansion over five hours ago. You radioed us just over one hour and fifteen minutes ago."

_ It's been a whole hour? It took me an hour to get here?_

"Has...has there been any contact from, from Jill?" Chris could barely get the words out. Kirk didn't shut him down, but his look was grim.

"We tried contacting Valentine just after you paged us. We received nothing but static, and the GPS system has been destroyed." The words were like knives in Chris's heart. Kirk's eyes were moving over Chris's face, a deep frown settling on his friend's own features. "Are you sure you want to go down with us? You look awful."

"I'm sure." Chris was doing his best to keep the emotion out of his voice. _Be a blank page. Unreadable. _By now men had reached them, and were adjusting themselves in repelling gear. Chris went over to them and began fitting himself with gear of his own, tightening the clasps.

"It'll take us a while to get to the bottom. We still don't seem to have a solid grasp of how deep the fall is, or have any idea of what Spencer may have wandering around here." The man in charge said. Chris listened to him rattle off protocol, what to look for, the signals if they found something, but Chris didn't need to listen. Anything they found that wasn't Jill didn't matter to him.

After what felt like hours, a team of just about two dozen men stood at the top of the mountain, while another three or four dozen stood above, holding repel lines. Chris's heart would not stop pounding, but aside from that, his body was still numb.

"We go down on three." Kirk said, in a loud and authoritative voice, checking both ways down the line. He was met with a serious of solemn nods, from uniformed BSAA soldiers. "One, two, three."

Chris Redfield kicked himself off of the side.

* * *

><p>Poor, panic stricken Chris, what ever will he do... Everything is fun from here on out, I get to do whatever I want with Chris, Jill and Wesker,and oh, do I have plans for them.<p>

Until next time~


	6. Don't Wake Me Up

Sorry for the slow updates, but that's life. Anyways, here's your next chapter! I know I know, I've been heavy on the Chris/Jill, but this is the last time we have any of it for a while. Everything after this chapter is Jill/Wesker, I proooomise. I just had to get this one little bit out.

Of course, Wesker's annoyed but dealing with it, and Jill, poor Jill, is remembering her last moment with Chris. Too bad she's only dreaming...

**Disclaimer; **All characters and most plot is not mine, copyright entirely of _Capcom; Resident Evil series._

**Warning; **Mild male/female sex.

* * *

><p><em>You came to me in seamless sleep<br>and slipped right in  
>Behind my eyes<br>in the back of my mind...  
><em>

Albert Wesker had survived a half a dozen situations that no one else could have. Each time he had come back, more determined than the last to make himself stronger. Strength and power had become the driving forces behind his madness, and through each near death experience, he learned more about himself. The first thing he learned was that when he came back to life, he came back bit by bit, sense by sense.

The sense of sound was always the first to return. Right now, the sounds of rain surrounded Wesker, filling puddles on the ground and dripping down the sheer rock face. Thunder rumbled from somewhere high above him, and everything sounded as if he were hearing it from far away. The sounds of the storm surrounded him, and for one fleeting moment, he wondered what he was doing outside. Everything got gradually louder, as if he were emerging from underwater, until the noise surrounded him.

The second sense to return was the ability to feel, and what Wesker felt was pain. Pain was something he hadn't had to deal with, and when he did, he had become the master of it. Wesker's ability to suppress pain was unyielding, and he had learned to overcome whatever was thrown at him. The sudden and unsurpassable feeling of pain was what made Wesker snap back to consciousness. He opened his eyes, and was met by stinging blindness from the right eye, and burning in the left. He closed them again and took a deep breath, even that proving to be a challenge. Although the viruses prevented him from suffering much damage, he could feel everything that would have been broken, and could feel his body fixing itself. He could feel his resistance.

He lifted his fingers to his face, lightly touching around his right eye, seeing red against the black of his gloves when he pulled his hand away. The collision of broken glass, and tumbling against the rock wall had severely cut him up. He took another measured breath, and again was met with heaviness on his chest.

_ Valentine. _

Slowly, almost carefully, he raised his head to look down the length of his torso. The unmoving, unconscious body of Jill Valentine was lying sideways on top of him, her cheek against his chest, and her arms and legs against the ground. Her right arm was twisted awkwardly, and Wesker didn't need to investigate to know she had broken it. He lifted his arm and flattened his hand against her back. He could feel a rising and falling with the breaths she took, and felt a weak but steady pulse. He pushed her off of him, her body sliding onto the ground as he rose, slowly. He felt shaky and uneasy, shards of broken glass falling off of him and clinking to the ground, pieces of rock and debris sticking to the back of his coat.

Straightening his back, his bones cracked and Wesker looked around them. They had landed, finally, on the flat, hard base of the cavern. He had taken the full force of the impact, and a deep crack in the ground had resulted. Broken glass, pieces of wood, and rocks and pebbles scattered the ground around where they had been lying. All sense of time was gone, but he was relieved to see that it was still dark, and that the rain had picked up. The blood that had gathered around them, and that Jill was now resting in was slowly washing away. Wesker took a step to where the woman lay, and nudged her over onto her back with the toe of his boot. She rolled over, her body lifeless. The glass and rocks had torn at her clothes, and everything except her boots, uniform and belt had been lost. A dark bruise was already forming on her cheek, and blood stained her shirt, and was trailing from the corner of her mouth. Wesker stood over her, staring down at her for several, long moments.

The sounds of voices made Wesker snap his head upwards, and he closed his eyes, focusing hard on the space high above them. _There._ He heard it again, the distinct sound of several voices, yelling out, echoing down the cliff. _Redfield. _A red hot, numbing anger filled him, and he clenched his fist, feeling little glass bits that were stuck to his glove being pushed through the material, cutting his skin. He looked back down at Jill and fought the over whelming urge to snap her neck and leave her there for the BSAA to find. _They would attribute it to the fall._ Wesker stood by her unmoving body, thinking for a moment.

_You were so close. You had him. He was going to die. _Looking left and right, Wesker knew where they were. There had been a time, years ago, that he had wandered down here.

The huge cliff behind the Spencer Estate narrowed down to a small, flat crevice that stretched on like a large and rock scattered road. The hard, cold ground here had not been touched by anything of human manufacture in years. Before Umbrella tanked, when Spencer first purchased the large mansion, he had taken advantage of the vast expansion of land and hidden places the location had to offer. Several Umbrella workers discovered this exact place, walking through the narrow fissure of rock.

The stretch of bare rock twisted and wound its way through the two cliffs like a long since abandoned road, dark caves and boulders scattered throughout. Wesker knew, however, that the darkness held more than just naturally made enclosures. _They would still be here._ He thought.

Wesker was unsure of what he was going to do with Jill, and where he was going to go from here. Wesker had not gone to the mansion anticipating either of the two to survive. _All three of them were going to be dead, and I was going to be free._

Bending down, Wesker slid his hands under Jill and picked her up, her limp body weighing nothing to him. Rising, he stood a moment, looking left, and then right. Jill's head was resting in the crook of his arm, her own broken arm folded over top of her, her other arm hanging free. A shallow, weak sound of her breathing was faintly audible over the echoing storm. Turning and walking right, Wesker began heading down the narrow, winding pathway, and away from the faint sounds of voices. After several steps, a faint noise from his arms made him look down at the woman.

Her eyes were moving beneath the lids, and she let out a soft groan. Wesker paused, taking a quick glance behind them, and looking down at Jill. He turned his ear towards her and held his breath, annoyance at the loudness of the storm passing over him. Jill was speaking, and the words he heard, hardly louder than a whisper, sent something through Wesker that made him almost glad she had pushed him out of that window.

"I'm sorry, Chris."

* * *

><p><em>Jill Valentine was exhausted, but she knew sleep would never come to her. Instead, she was sitting with her knees pulled to her chin in the office chair Chris Redfield had in his room. She had her arms pulled tight around her legs and was watching Chris go through a bunch of documents. She had offered him the desk, but he had laughed and said it was fine, so here she sat. The papers in front of him were all the gathered intel on Oswell E. Spencer, the man the pair were destined to locate and interrogate the following day. They had been going over them for hours and hours, ensuring that they knew as much as they could about the man and where he lived. <em>

_It had taken the B.S.A.A. over a year to track down the location of the estate the place which Spencer called home. Spencer had been in hiding there ever since Umbrella had fallen. Chris and Jill needed to find it in order to question Albert Wesker, because if there was anyone in the world that would know where he was, Oswell Spencer was that person. They hadn't even found the location on their own; one of their lead research teams was given a piece of information from a reliable informant who knew and had previously worked for Umbrella._

_Jill had familiarized herself with the information already, and knew what each paper contained. Chris, however, sat reading and rereading everything, even things that Jill knew he need not bother with. _He knows everything._ She thought. _Why won't he just go to sleep?

_Jill knew that she should go to sleep too, but the thought of being alone in bed in the dark bothered her. Ever since she'd found out they'd be going on this assignment, a nervousness had settled in her stomach, and instead of easing up with reassurance, it only twisted and turned inside of her. Chris had prodded her about it, asking why she was so quiet, asking why she wasn't eating. At first she had lied; told him it was just the time zone difference from travelling from the US to Europe, and at first that wasn't a total lie. Once Chris' own time zone sickness had worn off, Jill's excuse stopped working and she felt guilted into telling him the truth. Where she had expected him to laugh at her, his brows had creased and he'd sat with her and asked why. He had squeezed her arm, and thinking of that now, again, her arm tingled. _

_She crossed her legs in the office chair and wrapped her arms around herself. Chris leaned back against the edge of the metal framed bed, looking at Jill and sighed._

"_How are you feeling?" His green eyes moved over her, studying her face._

"_Fine. Better." She lied, dropping her eyes to her lap. She heard Chris rise, shuffling all the papers into a single pile and shoving them into the files he had strewn across the messy covers. Jill peeked up at him through her lashes, and watched him stretch, the t-shirt pulling tight against his muscular torso, and showing an inch of skin. She felt heat in her cheeks, and was thankful he only had on the dim light on his bedside table. Chris turned and moved to the desk, dropping the stack of folders and papers down just behind her, before going back over to the bed. _

"_We're going to be fine, Jill." He grabbed all the sheets on the bed and piled them on top of the pillows, taking the thin, bottom sheet and tossing it over the bed. "Just think about everything we've ever dealt with, think of it. S.T.A.R.S., Raccoon City, and everything since." He pulled each blanket apart and tossed it over the bed, before folding the top half down. He began re-organizing the pillows, and Jill realized he never made the bed for himself. Her heart thumped and she abruptly stood up from the chair, her head spinning a bit from sitting down for so long. _

_Chris turned to look at her, and gave her a smile. "Jill, I promise you we'll be fine." _

This could be your last night with him.

_She stretched too, smiling back. "You're right. It's late, I should really try and get some sleep." She gestured to the bed. "You should too."_

_Chris looked down at the bed as if he'd almost forgotten that's what he was leaning against. "Yeah," he said after a moment. "I should. We have a long day." He looked back at her, and they stood in silence for a moment._

"_Well, goodnight." She said, turning and going to the door._

"_Jill," she paused. Her heart was pounding and she turned around. He was looking after her with sad eyes. He opened his mouth to say something, and then closed it, sighing softly to himself. "I'll see you in the morning."_

"_See you." She let out the breath she hadn't realized she was holding, and it was all she could do to put her hand on the door handle and turn it. "Night."_

"_Goodnight, Jill."_

_She pulled the door open, stepped out into the hall, and pulled the door shut with a click. She stood a moment in the dark, empty hallway of the B.S.A.A.'s dormitory, and chewed her lip. Forcing herself down the hallway, she went to her own room. Chris and Jill basically had the entire hall to themselves. It was meant for the team, but since the pair operated alone, they had been given use of the space to do with as they pleased. Her room was at the end of the hall, and when she pushed the door open and turned on the light, she regretted leaving Chris. Going over to the set of drawers, she pulled out a plain black pair of shorts and a grey t-shirt, her usual bed attire. She grabbed her toothbrush , toothpaste and face wash, and went back out to the hallway, closing her door behind her. One of the perks of being the only two in the hallway, meant she had the female washroom entirely to herself. _

_The bathroom was a typical, army-base style washroom. Stainless steel sink, plain black counter, cupboards with towels and clothes, an all glass shower stall, and a plain black tub inset on the wall. She set her stuff down on the counter, changed into her pajamas, brushed her teeth and scrubbed down her face. It was as she was patting the water off her face, that she looked at herself in the mirror._

He wanted you to stay._ She thought of the way he had looked after her as she went to leave. _He wanted to make you feel safe.

"_You can be really stupid sometimes." She said to her reflection. Her stomach was twisting and making her feel sick, the worry filling her thoughts. If she were right, if the nagging, bothersome feelings were right, and something bad was going to happen the next day, she would never forgive herself. _If I lose Chris tomorrow, I'll feel guilty for the rest of my life._ Things with Chris had never been simple. Jill knew exactly how he felt about her, and she felt the same, but being partners, well, that had always made things hard._

_Jill walked from the bathroom back to her room and tossed her things on her bed, hoping Chris wasn't asleep. Going back to the hallway, she walked quietly down to Chris's door. The crack of light was still there, and she shivered, her exposed skin covered in goosebumps. The entire B.S.A.A. facility always felt cold to her, and the constant rain and wind in Europe did nothing to help. Her heart thumping away, she knocked gently on the door._

"_Come in." Pushing the door open, she slipped inside and shut the door behind her. Chris was leaning back against pillows, a magazine open against his knees. When he saw her, he sat upright and put the magazine on the table._

"_Jill," She bit her lip and twisted her fingers in nervousness._

"_Can I, um," she looked down at her feet. "can I sleep here tonight?" Her eyes moved up to look at him, and he was staring back at her._

"_Of course you can." He slid over in the large bed, and pushed the sheets aside. His room, like the hallway, was freezing, and the large, thick blankets looked so appealing. Her feet moved softly over the cold, tile floor, and she climbed up into the bed, settling against the pillows and pulling the covers up over herself. The shivering wouldn't stop, despite the warmth on the mattress from where Chris had just been lying._

"_I was about to go to sleep, unless you wanted to talk or..."_

"_No." She said a bit too abruptly. "I mean, no, I just, I just want to try and get some sleep." She said quietly. A shiver went through her, and she could hear the dull hum of the air circulating from the vent across the room. She wiggled down deeper against the pillows and blankets, and peeked over at Chris. He was looking at her lying there and she blushed again. He sighed._

"_Okay. Can I turn off the light then?" Jill could have easily clicked off the light for him, but she nodded and pulled the thin cover up to her chin. The corner of Chris' mouth twitched in amusement, and he nodded. He sat up and leaned over, reaching over her to click off the little light. His torso pressed against her as he did it, and she closed her eyes at the warmth of him. She inhaled his smell and it was all she could do not to wrap her arms around him, but she resisted. A second later, the room became totally dark, and she felt him move back over in the bed, the warmth leaving. _

_Jill rolled over onto her side, facing away from Chris and sighed quietly into the pillow. The dull hum of the air vent was the only thing that disturbed the silence of the room. As she lay there, she tried to push away the worries she'd had, but they wouldn't stop. _He's beside you. He's right there, just roll over and reach out to him. _Jill rolled over, doing her best not disturb the blankets and faced Chris. Her eyes were still adjusting to the darkness, but she could tell he was lying on his back, but not whether or not he was awake. The urge to touch him, to be closer to him was pulling at her, and she finally decided to give in. _

_Jill reached out and touched her fingers gently against his chest, flattening her hand and moving her thumb over the thin material of his shirt. He stirred, and she could actually feel his heart skip a beat. Her own heart did an odd feeling beat of its own, and she slid her arm over his chest, sliding closer to him, wiggling over until she could rest her cheek on his chest. _

"_Jill..." Chris' voice was barely audible, and hearing it made Jill squeeze her eyes shut and nuzzle against him. His arms moved around her, and held her tightly against his body. Without any warning at all, Jill felt hot tears form in her eyes, and she was forced to sniffle as quietly as she could. Quietly wasn't quite enough, and Chris's grip around her loosened._

"_Hey...hey what's wrong?" His voice was gentle and filled with concern. Jill tried to pull away from him to hide her face in the pillows, but he wouldn't let her and she was forced to look up at him. _

"_It's nothing." Her voice was shaky, and she felt angry with herself. _You are being so stupid, you're crying over nothing.

"_It's obviously not nothing, c'mon. You can tell me." His brows were creased and he moved his hand to brush the tears off her cheeks._

"_I'm just scared, Chris." She sniffed again, and closed her eyes against the feeling of his hand against her cheek. "I'm just so scared I'm gonna lose you."_

_He sat up, and she slid off of his chest and onto the pillows and blankets. He propped himself up on one arm and looked down at her, keeping his other hand against her cheek, brushing the hair behind her ear._

"_This about the worries you've been having?"_

_She felt more tears, and sniffled again, nodding._

"_Jill, look at me, just look and listen. You are not going to lose me, okay? I don't know what's making you worry, or why you feel like this, but you have no reason to. We know what we're going to do. We're going to go there, kill whatever monsters he set up for us, find him, apprehend him and come back. It's nothing we haven't done before." He moved a bit closer to her, and she wiped her eyes. "Now stiffen up that lip, Jill Valentine. You're a fighter, and the Jill I know would take the worries and kick them out the door."_

_Jill laughed at that. "You're right." She looked up at him, and studied his face. "You're right." She whispered again, and moved a bit closer. He was so close, and right there, all she had to do was lean forward..._

_She closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his. He responded immediately, pulling her close to him and kissing back. They broke apart, and lay there with their noses touching._

"_Chris..."_

_He kissed her again, leaning into her and rolling her onto her back, moving against her. His body was warm against hers, and his kisses were deep. When she felt his tongue gently press against her lips, she parted them for him, and moved her hands down his back. Jill's heart was pounding, and for one split second, she almost made him stop, but when she felt his hands moving over her, she shuddered and urged him on. They undressed, their kisses never ceasing, and Jill got lost with him, completely, as she always did when they were together like this. The more Chris kissed her, the more she relaxed, and as his mouth moved, his hands moved, and eventually his body moved against hers, she lost herself against him and for those moments, she was happy. Despite all the worries she had, despite the gnawing fear, Chris was making her happy, and what's more, he was making her feel protected._

_Chris was kissing her, his mouth against hers, against her neck; the warmth of his breath against her skin, and the feeling of him was incredible, and when she came, her body quivered underneath him, gasping in pleasure. Moments after, Chris finished, groaning and shuddering, the two of them lying there without moving. Chris collapsed on top of her, kissing her neck and then her cheek, and Jill wrapped her arms around him, catching her breath and burying her face against the heat of his skin._

_Jill had always enjoyed the after, and now Chris was falling asleep on top of her, and she was lying beneath him, worries all but forgotten. Jill's eyes were heavy as she settled into the warmth of the blankets. Chris's breath was warm and comforting against her neck, and he sighed happily against her._

"_I promise you we'll be okay, Jill." He whispered. "And tomorrow morning, we're going to wake up side by side. I'm gonna roll over and say 'I told you everything was gonna be okay."_

_...I swore I could feel you breathe,  
>it was all so real to me.<em>

_**_- - Don't Wake Me Up, The Hush Sound_**_

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><p><strong><strong>End, chapter 5! Like always, I hope you guys like it. That's all for Chris for quite a while, and now we're going to get a lot of Jill/Wesker. I promise, I swear, I'm not lying!

Like always, reviews/faves/comments/etcetcetc are always greatly appreciated, and see you all soon~!


	7. Hiding in Plain Sight

I give you all permission to scream at me.

First of all, the HUGEST OF APOLOGIES for such a huge gap between chapters. Life caught up with me - university, a job, RE6. I (of course) finished RE6 a week and a bit ago, and I loved it, but fear not! I won't let anything that happened in that game effect my plans for this story. (Nor will I divulge any spoilers, other than I am in love with Jake.)

I feel like this isn't the best of chapters, but hey, it's something right? Like always, read/review/comment/complain/give feedback/etc etc etc, so WITHOUT FURTHER ADO

**Disclaimer; **All characters and most plot is not mine, copyright entirely of _Capcom; Resident Evil series, etc etc blah blah blah._

**Warning; **Nope.

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><p>A heartbeat is always loudest when asleep, and when there's silence all around. In silence, the heart is like a bass drum, pounding, louder than anything but yet, not making a sound. A heart could tell many things. A heart tells of fear, or of excitement; it can tell of nervousness or anxiety or panic. In the end, the heartbeat is always the last sound before death – the one that lingers, long after the sounds of the world have died away.<p>

Jill Valentine's heart was telling her that she was alive. _Alive_. The word seemed to float in her mind, just behind her eyes. The heartbeat in her chest was screaming in her ears. For several moments, Jill didn't know why she was asleep.

_Spencer...have to...find...Spencer..._

A memory drifted into her mind, almost like a dream...

Chris was beside her, and for some reason their guns were drawn. They were somewhere big...somewhere unpleasantly familiar..._mansion...Spencer..._ Spencer, that's why they were here..._basement...not safe..._a dark hallway swam behind her eyes. _We...we found him..._

A dead body on the floor, the body of Oswell Spencer...and behind him...

_Wesker._

Wesker had been there, they hadn't been expecting that. _We wouldn't have...been alone..._the thoughts were all blurry, and coming in flashes, some more clearly than others. It was as if Jill was struggling to remember a quickly fading dream, except instead of becoming vaguer, the thoughts got clearer. Wesker had been unbelievably fast, and strong, and suddenly Jill realized it wouldn't have mattered if they'd had an entire BSAA team with them, they would not have stood a chance.

_But we did...we...we survived..._

Blinding flashes of light from outside illuminating a dusty room filled with the smell of moulding paper, and illness. The bodies of security guards, all with matching wounds...rotting, decaying creatures in a waste-laden, torture chamber-like basement. The air had been such a relief, and Chris had found them weapons again. All that was left was Spencer...

_Spencer..._

Something had been wrong, and Jill had known. All those months and months of feeling awful and crying, and being too anxious to spend any time with Chris at all, despite his constant questioning, and concerned glances, Jill had known something bad was going to happen. Whether that came from years by Chris' side, or whether it was just a survival instinct inside her, she had _known_.

And now Jill knew she was in trouble.

Jill had been knocked unconscious before, and she knew the process of coming back to life. The senses came back one at a time, each one making it known to her, each one alerting her to wherever she was. The first sense to return was pain.

Whatever Jill had thought she would feel like if she survived did not align with how she felt, and the pain she felt wasn't anywhere near the amount she should be feeling. _Somebody's given me something._ The thought should have been hopeful, but vague pictures in Jill's mind prevented the positive emotions. Instead, a sense of anxiety was inside of her.

_What...happened..._

She remembered sudden cold, and wet. There was a storm outside, it had come at last. The downpour of rain and flashes of light across the dark autumn sky had finally delivered the storm they had been promising. _But how did I get outside..._ Whatever the BSAA had given her was really knocking her for a loop. _The BSAA...but how did they..._

Shattering glass; shards of it falling past her. Falling...falling..._the window. _Like a movie, a scene played in her mind of Chris being thrown across the room, and Wesker's silhouette moving after him. The determination of his walk had terrified Jill. She remembered silently urging Chris to get up, and when Wesker picked her partner up, Jill had known the only thing she could do was sacrifice herself for him.

Jill remembered falling, she had fallen with Wesker...

_And Chris had found me!_ The thought jolted her into wakefulness. Her eyes snapped open, and she squinted upwards. There was a bright white light shining down in her eyes. A dull headache was pounding behind her eyes, and whatever medication she had been given made her whole head feel very light. Jill went to raise a hand to shield her vision, but found her arm was stuck.

_A...sling. Your arm's in a sling... _She raised her other arm, and blocked the light. Her movements felt slow, and her limbs felt heavy. _Numb. _It was strong, the painkiller she'd been given, yet there was something wrong. Jill's heart was still pounding in her ears, but over its loud thumping, Jill could hear nothing. It was totally silent.

Her eyes finally adjusting, Jill found herself gazing up into bright white lights. _Something's not right._ It was far too quiet for her. Every hospital facility the BSAA had was filled with beeps, and hums, and talking, even on the quietest of days. The silence that Jill found herself surrounded by was unnerving. Turning, she looked and saw a table, with a scattering of supplies across it. A used syringe, a torn white sheet...this was no proper hospital facility.

"C-Chris?" Her voice cracked and hurt when she spoke, and was hardly louder than a whisper. Trying to sit up, Jill rose, the room spinning dizzily before her eyes. It took her a moment to stave off the nausea, and when she could see straight again, she knew this was no BSAA facility. "Chris?" She asked again, her voice louder this time, but she received no response. Her body had a dull, achy feeling, as if her injuries had been sustained weeks ago. Looking back to the table, she could see that the syringe had dust on it, in fact, the entire room seemed unused...

The table Jill had been placed on had been covered in dust, disturbed from the movement of placing her on it. Sliding her feet off the edge of the table, Jill saw blood streaked down her pants, so much blood that she felt dizzy. _How could one person survive losing so much blood? _The bare floor was cold against her feet, and she realized her shoes had been removed. After a bleary look around the room, she saw her shoes standing upright along a plain white wall. Her hair was sticking to her forehead, and her heart was skipping weak beats from the movement after being still. Jill went to take a step towards her things, but went over on her ankle and fell to the floor. Despite the blurry feeling from the medication, Jill gasped in pain as it felt like razors were being shot up her leg. Cringing, her hand moved to her pant leg and she gingerly pulled it up. Aside from being filthy and scraped, her ankle was slightly swollen.

"Now, Miss Valentine, did you really think you were above a sprained ankle after a fall like that?"

Jill's stomach flew into her throat, and she put all of her weight into rolling away from the voice. Icy jolts were going through her body, and the pain that accompanied the sudden movement almost made her pass out. Her ankle screaming in protest, Jill feebly shuffled away from a dark shadow she was convinced hadn't been there seconds ago.

"No...no it's not..." the words would barely come out, her breathing was so fast.

"Miss Valentine, you are pushing yourself a little hard after being unconscious for five hours, wouldn't you say?"

It felt as if she were out in the cold, pounding rain again. _Five hours? No...no five hours hadn't passed. She had just been awake...where is the BSAA? _Jill couldn't understand, and her heart was racing.

"Yes, Jill, you've been in my care for five hours now." Wesker's voice was calm, and what's more, he didn't look as though he had a scratch on him. "Surprised to be alive?"

Pacing, always pacing. Why did he always have to pace?

Jill felt like prey that had been crippled, and now the beast was just waiting for the kill. _Why _am_ I alive? _Feeling vulnerable and afraid, Jill was in too much pain to defend herself, should she need, and though her shoes and sodden belongings were piled against the wall, she saw no weapon to use. Instead she shuffled backwards, painfully, until she bumped the wall beside her boots. Wesker had made his way over to the table and was now staring down at it. After a moment, he picked up the empty syringe and twirled it lazily between his gloved fingers.

"There are easier ways of taking your life, Miss Valentine." His voice was taunting, mocking what had happened. _Why isn't he angry? I ruined it, I ruined his chance...he should be furious... _Jill's eyes watched the empty needle move, a blur between his fingers.

"What was in that?" Her throat hurt, everything hurt. Whatever he had given her was wearing off, and Jill was feeling the force of the fall. Wesker stopped moving the small tube, and gave it a thoughtful look, as if he'd thought it had been a pen.

"Old medication. I was concerned as to whether or not it would help with the pain or make it worse." He said these words with mock concern, clearly hoping it had been the latter. Taking a step closer to Jill, his red eyes did a once over of her appearance. _His glasses are gone._ "It certainly did nothing for the appearance of your injuries." He jeered. The comment only furthered Jill's confusion. _Why is he so calm?_ It made her uneasy. A sudden loud beeping noise startled Jill so badly she hit her good arm against the wall. Wesker flinched at the noise, whipping around and striding across the room to a panel along the wall Jill hadn't noticed before. Wesker, Jill noticed, was limping slightly. In fact, now that she had a moment to look at him, she noticed that he was also filthy, stained with dirt and blood. His hair, though still pushed into place, looked wet and was as dirty as his clothing, which was torn in several places. Aside from the limp and missing shades, Wesker looked more or less fine.

The buzzing subsided after he had pushed something into the panel's keyboard. A loud, clear female voice echoed through the room. "Seventy-two hours of oxygen remaining." Jill's heart gave a leap. _That's three days. Only three days of oxygen? Where are we? _"Where..."

"An old facility placed here by Spencer, back when Umbrella had just been founded." Pacing again, Wesker went over to the monitor attached to the end of the panel and tapped it, opening a complicated looking screen. "There are several exactly like it all around the mansion, that thankfully the BSAA failed to discover." A hint of satisfaction there. _We did scans of the area..._ "It will have to suffice until we can leave. As you may have heard," another infuriating smirk, "that's in seventy-two hours." Jill's attention had gotten stuck on the monitor. Small, blurry images of people were wandering around in what looked like pounding rain, all with flashlights and apparently dressed in uniform. Hands shaking, Jill unsteadily rose to her feet, which threatened to give out from underneath her at any second.

"Oh good, you've noticed that the security cameras hidden around the mansion still work as well." The sarcasm went over her head completely this time. The camera was trained on one of the blurred figures. "The BSAA are doing their best to thoroughly search the area. How unlucky that the weather is being so uncooperative." Jill's heart was racing as the figure on the monitor handed something to another figure. The figure had dark hair. Wesker looked from Jill to the monitor, then to the far wall. "And how unfortunate that they have yet to realize that they are standing just outside of whom they are looking for." Jill whipped her head to the wall he was staring at and saw nothing, until she noticed a thin line that separated it from the floor. _A door. This room is inside one of the rock walls. They're right outside. the doors. _Without thinking, Jill took several jolting steps towards the door.

"Chris! Chris, I'm in here! Help, please, Chris..." she was screaming. This was her only chance, if Wesker hadn't allowed her to die during the fall, he was planning on something worse, she knew it. This was the only chance she had, so to hell with it, she was going to scream for all she was worth. Wesker, however, did not seem to think this was acceptable. Moving across the room so quickly Jill didn't see him, his grip found her throat and she was slammed back against the wall, his fingers cutting off almost all of her air.

"Scream all you'd like, Miss Valentine. They won't hear you. They aren't going to save you."

Gasping with a mixture of fear and pain, Jill felt tears fill her eyes and begin leaking out. From behind Wesker, the figures began looking along the wall opposite the camera. "Why didn't you just let me die?" She choked out, the combination of Wesker's grip and crying making her voice shake. Wesker leaned in close to Jill, closer than she would have liked, and his grip tightened just a bit further.

"Because, Jill," a horrible smirk working its way across his features, "death would have been too easy."

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><p>"Time is 4:34am. BSAA efforts in the search of Jill Valentine are being wrapped up for the evening. Search will resume in o600 hours, during which time search and rescue teams will be aided by helicopter surveillance of the surrounding forested area of the Spencer Mansion. Over three dozen men have participated, lead by Chris Redfield, leading officer in the BSAA, former partner of..."<p>

Chris had to stop listening, it was making him sick. There was no body anywhere. The rain was still pouring, and was obliterating any evidence. The only proof that seemed to suggest anything out of the ordinary may have happened here was a deep crack in the otherwise solid stone ground. Kirk was reading out his official log for the evening, and the men all around Chris were returning the equipment to the trucks.

Sitting on a jutting edge of rock, Chris sat, staring down along the cliff's floor, as if expecting to see Jill hiding in the shadows. The ability to be helpful in the search and left him about an hour earlier, when Kirk and said his agitation was doing nothing in aiding the search. Just by the tones of voices, he could tell his team was giving up already. There was no body, and therefore no proof. Nothing to rescue.

_Where are you, Jill?_

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><p><em><em>The end of that chapterrrr. I also realize (after re-reading all my fics) that I skip over so many stupid little spelling and grammatical things. If you ever read anything that doesn't make sense, I probably just didn't edit it properly.

Review and tell me what you think!

Next chapter will NOT take this long, prooooomiiiiseeee :)


	8. As Time Flies By

Again, life caught me in its grip, but here I am. Another day, another chapter.

You'll be happy to know that I've gotten inspiration for this one recently, so the next chapter should be out relatively soon

**Disclaimer; **All characters and most plot is not mine, copyright entirely of _Capcom; Resident Evil series, etc etc blah blah blah._

**Warning; **Nope.

* * *

><p>"Time remaining; four hours and twenty-seven minutes"<p>

The detached female voice echoed around the inside of the room, and it seemed remarkable to Jill that after such a long period of disregard it could sound so crystal clear. At first, Jill and her captor had reacted strongly to the voice, though their reactions differed radically. Jill had jumped, frightened at first, then hopeful, thinking it was coming from outside and that she was saved, but it sunk in quickly that it was a computerized voice informing the inhabitants of the old facility that they had twenty-four hours of oxygen remaining.

Wesker, on the other hand, had visibly cringed, whipping towards the computer and doing everything he could short of punching a hole through it to get the voice to shut up. Jill had supposed that despite himself, he feared Chris and the BSAA's presence just outside the faux rock wall. Once he realized he could not shut the voice up without risking the loss of their oxygen supply, he had resigned himself to pacing the room. Every hour after that, the voice had reminded them of their impending suffocation should they remain in the room. At twelve hours, the voice had begun doing it every half hour, and since six hours had passed, it seemed the voice selected random intervals to break the uncomfortable silence.

Starving and thirsty, Jill sat slumped against the wall absolutely exhausted. Sleep was something that she was too terrified to allow, feeling the need to keep a watchful eye on Wesker. The injuries she had suffered from the fall had not improved, and the last of the ancient medicine had been used up four hours prior. Jill's leg in particular ached horribly, and she had remained sitting to avoid the discomfort. Her arm throbbed in her makeshift sling, her face was scraped and scabbed, and bruises littered her body; she didn't need to see them to know they were there. Aside from that, Jill felt dirty. The rain and mud and blood had streaked across her clothing and her face, tangled her hair and gotten under her nails. More often than not, and growing more and more frequently, she kept thinking of the shower in the BSAA headquarters. _It's painful to think about that, and that pain is nothing to do with the fall._

Wesker had spent the past three days going from impatient pacing of the room, hunched-shouldered studying of the computer, or staring at the security monitors. The silence that had settled was uncomfortable, and the questions that filled Jill's head threatened to spill out at any moment, but she was terrified of voicing them. One thing was certain; Jill could not for anything in the world figure out how or why she was still alive. Seriously injured as she was, the fact that she sat here, breathing and whole, seemed a complete mystery. His plans; everything he had worked for, everything he dreamt of had almost become possible. The death of Chris would have allowed for that, but Jill had stopped it. So why then? _Why am I alive?_

A shiver went through Jill, and it had nothing to do with the cold air that kept circulating the room. The shiver was because of something far more sinister, and that was Jill's ideas of what it was exactly that Wesker was planning to do to her.

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><p>"Time remaining: two hours and thirteen minutes."<p>

A reliable, temporally consistent reminder had been on the verge of becoming tolerable. It could be easily ignored, because he had known exactly when it was coming. The first random announcement had almost ruined everything. A small pulse of rage filtered through Wesker, as he stood with his back to Jill, and his eyes trained on the security screens. The rage was controllable, just present. The voice was annoying him, and every time the frequency increased, the rage threatened just a little bit more to push him over that delicate line in his mind.

Wesker was more than aware that his time waiting down here was limited, and in more ways than one. The BSAA's relentless efforts and ceased suspiciously fast, and Wesker didn't trust the apparently blank screens. Perhaps an optimistic person would say that the BSAA had given up, but Wesker knew them better...knew _him_ better. _That pathetic loyalty would never allow for it._ The thought was savage, and the rage pulsed again. Redfield wouldn't quit so easily, and the fact that Wesker was trapped in here, hiding like some common criminal worked on his nerves more than the electronically generated voice of the old hideaways. Wesker could do nothing but stare at the screens intensely, looking for any hint that the BSAA were still monitoring the outside area. The thought of what he would do should the BSAA be outside when they were forced to leave was not even entertained. All Wesker knew was that he longed for escape from his entrapment.

The screens gave a promising glow of the outside world, but Wesker had just suffered the constant reminder that he was trapped in here. The BSAA had come back only twice, each time with search and rescue teams, and each time with Chris Redfield. The rage that hovered under it all flowed through his veins in waves each time he saw the brawny soldier. _It was almost over._ The bitter thought seemed to be the only one, shining in clarity over all the underlying musing thoughts of how and where they would leave. Chris' presence outside put Wesker on edge; here he was, hiding like a trapped animal in a cage, while Chris led an army through the canal outside. The only thing that gave him his preferred state of confidence was the small, broken thing which sat slumped in the corner behind him.

_Jill Valentine._ The injuries she had sustained were serious, but not fatal. Wesker could have easily fixed them with the proper medical supplies, but as he neither cared to do so nor was in possession of any, he had refrained to forcing the old medicine into her. It could have been poison, Wesker knew that well enough. Among thoughts of departure and frustration lingered ponderings of why he had saved her. _Simplicity._ Jill's death couldn't come easily, not after the severity of the disruption she had caused to his life.

_All good things to those who wait._

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><p>"Warning; time remaining thirteen minutes."<p>

It was as if Wesker's internal clock was programmed with that voice, the pulsing vibrations in his head making it feel as if the voice were screaming in his ear instead of echoing in the empty room. Thirteen minutes of security was all he had left, and if the monitors were correct, the passage outside remained empty. Wesker wasn't foolish enough to think that meant security all around them, simply that their immediate exit might not be more difficult than it need be.

The small syringe in his pocket rested against his hand, fingers tapping against it lightly. Even Wesker had realized how lucky he was to have found this one last piece of help from his temporary prison. It was enough, of that he was sure. It would give him almost twenty-four hours of peace to figure out where he was going and what he'd do when he got there. For now, he needed to be as far away from the mansion as possible, and he needed somewhere to reside. _I've been displaced, and now I need to reassemble the pieces._

"Warning; sixty seconds remaining."

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><p>The enddddd! I've already started writing the next chapter, so it will be up before you know it!<p>

Read/review/comment, and thankyouthankyouthankyou :)


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